Zero Point Vegetarian Soup

I eat soup every single day. I normally go out and buy Progresso soup in the can. I always get the Weight Watchers ones since I've been watching my weight since January (basically I got tired of being fat) Since I've been on WW I've lost 25 pounds. I've gained a few here and there (but never more then 5) but I have always lost them shortly after I put them on. With the New Year coming I am trying to lose another 10 pounds to get me to 140 pounds - my big goal, one I didn't make even though it was my New Years Resolution.

Because money has been tighter I wanted to stop buying the Progresso, so I made my own soup that should be either 0 or 1 point per one cup serving. There are also very few measurements with this soup, I just threw in what I had, so you can change it yourself as you feel necessary!



I started the soup by putting three cloves of garlic in a garlic press and getting all that garlicky goodness into the pot.



Then I went to chopping up an onion in my little mini processor. My eyes are very very sensitive to the onion so this makes it so I can actually cook with them.



I had a teaspoon of olive oil in the bottom of my stock pot and I had it turned on as well, so I began sweating the onion and garlic (this means keep it on a low heat!)

While that did it's thing I started cutting up my veggies:



First I did some green beans.



And then I started on some carrots.



At that point my onions were done and I added in 7 cups of water....



And two vegetarian vegetable bullion cubes, I normally don't have to much room for stock in the house so this does the trick.



I also took a can of diced tomatoes to add to the mixture and gave it a stir.



I then added all my chopped veggies and added in two small bowls of corn to give it some nice color.



After that I opened a can of kidney beans for some extra goodness, drained and rinsed them before adding them in.



Then I added spices. In this was a bay leaf, died basil, dried oregano, thyme, adobo, salt, & pepper.



When it started to cook and come to a boil I added in a small can of tomato paste to give it make a nice tomato overtone, as I love tomato based soup. It also made a nice smell that attracted my Gracie.



When everything was done I portioned it out into 1 cup servings for my lunches and two larger ones for Danny, one for his dinner on Wednesday as I have an office party and a smaller one for a lunch for him.

Hope you enjoy it! Sure is tasty!

Cannellini Bean Soup

Here is the story of Cannellini Bean Soup, brought to you by the Tiny Ass Kitchen:



One day I had some cannellini beans that I didn't know what to do with. And I thought I would use them to make a soup, but I would puree the beans.

Interesting huh?



So I put two cans in a pot and added about 5 cups of water.



The I broke out the immersion blender my Mommy got for me that I don't use as much as I should (and I really should because it's AWESOME - thanks Mom)...



And I took my aggression out on the beans and went to town. I messed up and brought it to high up and got some all over the stove, but it's ok, Danny will clean it, it's what he does best...



But I blended until all of the beans DISSAPPEARED! Woooooooooooooooo. Scary huh? (I'm in a mood, leave alone ;-) )



I turned on the stove under the bean mixture and added in two bullion cubes (veggie ones) and let it simmer.



While that did it's thing I started to chop up two carrots, a red bell pepper and an onion - which I did in my mini chop (just the onion) because they really hurt my eyes.



I threw them in a pot and let them soften and added in some garlic. I added in some cumin as well, it made the tiny ass kitchen smell lovely.




And then I added it to the bean mixture and let it cook down even more. While it cooked down I added in some pepper, and dried chives and oregano.



I wanted to do something a little special with the soup so I went into my fridge and pulled out two tortillas (99 cents at Aldi!) and cut them into little wedges on a baking sheet.



I coated them with just a touch of oil and a little bit of salt and baked them at 350 for 10 minutes, when they were ready to come out of the oven, the soup was ready as well.



Dinner was done and ready to be eaten by all in the Tiny Ass Apartment in West End.



And everyone in the Tiny Ass Apartment was wonderfully full with a warm feeling in their bellies.

The End.

(and don't worry, I didn't feed it to the cats.)

Beef Barley Stew

Earlier this year I experimented with being a vegetarian and miserably failed. Although I have found a happy medium in eating seafood and having normally one meet dish every other week, I still cook with meats here and there. I generally cook German or English Sausage but my husband had mentioned during the month that he wanted stew and the only stew I know has well, beef.

This concoction really doesn't have a recipe because I really just made it on the fly... so this may not be the last stew recipe on this blog.

I started out by dicing up an onion and some garlic and sauteing it in my dutch oven and then adding some stew beef rolled in about a 1/4 cup of flour that I bought at, you guessed it, Aldi's.



I know, it doesn't look that great, but it got the Quality Control Gracie on the job.



While it browns up in the pot, I give it an occasional stir. Since I multitask well, I begin to cut up about 2 cups of carrots because I like carrots.



When I notice that the meat is getting browned up I deglazed the pot with a little bit of wine that I got in August in Pennsylvania when Danny and I took a weekend escape. It's a Cabernet Sauvignon from the Clover Hill Winery which is right outside of Allentown, PA in the heart of the Lehigh Valley Wine Country, and it really gave this stew a great flavor.



And if your ever in the Allentown area check out them and Vynecrest because they have a wonderful cherry wine that would be a great dessert with some chocolate... but back to the stew!

I then added three cups of water and two bullion cubes to the meat since I don't keep stock in the house, bullion to me makes just as good of a stock without having to find a place to keep all those cans.



Once I give that another good stir I add in the carrots I chopped up and stir them into the mixture.



Well since this is Barley stew I had bought the barley for the stew last month at Whole Foods up in Middletown, NJ.



Again, I'm not into the whole organic thing, but I like buying my barley in bulk there since I know it hasn't been sitting forever like in the Shop Rite by me. Plus I feel like a cool kid when I shop in Whole Foods, like a cool hippie kid.

I only add in an over flowing 1/2 cup of barley because I have learned the hard way that this stuff can swell.

Once that is done I thought my stew needed more veggies so I added in some frozen corn and frozen peas.



I let the stew cook for about 1 1/2 hours until the broth was nice and thick and the barley was cooked.

Finally dinner was ready and it ended up looking like this:



Of course I served it with the same wine I used to deglaze although I do not care for Cabernet's my husband loves it and the stew even got my husbands seal of approval.



I wish I could give you a better recipe for my little creation but you'll have to do the deducing from the blog itself. Remember that cooking soups and stews you really have a lot of leeway and can add anything from beans, mushrooms, or other veggies you have laying in the fridge, cans or in the freezer. Cooking is great because you can experiment alot with it, so get in the kitchen and have some fun!

Happy Cooking!