Alphabet Soup

If any of you have children who are fans of Martha Speaks (a book series and now a show on PBS about a talking dog who eats Alphabet Soup), perhaps Alphabet Soup has been a frequent request in your house.  My son has been begging for Alphabet Soup for a week and I finally was inspired to make it tonight.  This recipe is really delicious and quite easy.  We had Taco Tuesday this week and had a little bit of leftover taco meat so I threw that in as well.  A delicious addition, but not necessary.

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, diced
3 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt, pepper, paprika
1 quart chicken broth
1 to 1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup chopped frozen spinach
1/2 to 1 cup cooked ground meat
1/2 cup Alphabet pasta

Directions: 

Saute onion, carrots, celery, and garlic in the olive oil for a few minutes until the veggies are slightly tender.  Season veggies with salt, pepper, and paprika.  Add chicken broth, water, and spinach.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce to low and simmer for about 30 minutes.  Add the cooked meat (optional) and the alphabet pasta.  Return to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for about 10 minutes until the pasta is cooked.

Rotisserie Chicken Salad

This recipe is super easy and absolutely delicious.  Tonight was a leftover night - kiddos had a late afternoon birthday party, we all ate a late lunch, mommy was tired... no cooking going on.  I sent my husband to forage in our nearly empty fridge.  He found some cheese, an apple, a few items in the crisper and... TA-DAH ... leftover rotisserie chicken from the other night!  Score!

I forgot how much I love rotisserie chicken salad.  I like to chop up my chicken and additional ingredients into pretty small pieces but you can tear the chicken to make it look a little more rustic and chop the veggie additions a little bit more coarsely if you prefer.

For tonight's chicken salad, I added a small, beautiful, shiny red apple, 1/2 of a small yellow onion, and 1 stalk of celery.  I sprinkled the chicken, apples, onion, and celery with some LIME PEPPER and a little bit of CRAZY SALT, added DUKE's mayonnaise (because, well, I live in NC now so apparently Duke's mayo is the standard), lightly mixed it all together and voila, dinner!

My husband put his chicken salad on a fresh focaccia roll from Earth Fare - I just tore out the inside of the bread to make room to pile the chicken salad.  I preferred to eat mine with a fork, right out of the bowl.  One less dish to clean up.

Chicken salad is such a great way to extend a dinner from earlier in the week without actually feeling like you are eating leftovers ... cook once, eat twice!  I hope you enjoy it!

Maple Syrup Glazed Carrots

Some days we are super healthy around here and others, well, other days we pour maple syrup over our baby carrots and promise to eat better tomorrow... This recipe is so easy and so delicious!

Ingredients:

1 small bag of baby carrots
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon crazy salt

Directions:

Combine ingredients.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce to a medium simmer and cook for about 15 minutes until the carrots are tender.  Enjoy!

Banana Princess Castle Birthday Cake (Gluten Free!)

My twins turned five last week and my daughter requested a princess castle banana cake with cream cheese frosting.  How could I say no?  Thankfully, her twin brother thought that was an excellent idea so I narrowly escaped making two cakes this year.  I made the banana cake gluten free by using an all-purpose flour from the Gluten Free Pantry - I have purchased this at Whole Foods and Earth Fare.  My friend had made a monkey cake for her daughter's 2nd birthday using the banana cake recipe from www.momswhothink.com (http://www.momswhothink.com/cake-recipes/banana-cake-recipe.html) I replaced the sifted flour with the gluten free flour and it really needed no other adjustments.  The Gluten Free Pantry flour is really great - it is pricey but it makes delicious baked goods!

Banana Cake
1/2 cup butter, softened to room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 large eggs, beaten
2 cups GF all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup skim milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
3 very ripe bananas, pureed in mixer
3/4 teaspoon baking soda, added to bananas

I used a princess castle cake pan purchased at Michael's - but you could also use 2 nine inch pans.  Spray pan with cooking spray.

Puree bananas, add baking soda and set aside.

After setting aside bananas, cream softened butter, sugar, and eggs.

In separate bowl, add salt and baking powder to the flour.

Add the milk and flour to the creamed butter and eggs - alternating with the flour and milk - end with the last bit of flour.

Add vanilla and pureed bananas.  Mix.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 45 to 50 minutes.  Two nine inch pans would probably take about 25 to 30 minutes.

Cool and frost with cream cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

4 tablespoons butter, softened
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 box powdered sugar (about 1 pound)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Mix cream cheese and butter in a large mixer.  Add sugar and vanilla - blend well until there are no more sugar lumps.  I separated the frosting into three containers and dyed one part pink, one part purple and left one part white.  The kids loved their princess castle cake and no one guessed that it was even gluten free!!