Roasted Vegetable Soup

This is absolutely perfect for Fall! My girls and I created our own holiday years ago. It's on October 1st and we make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, decorate the house for Halloween with Halloween music, go shopping for Halloween costumes, have soup for dinner and watch a Halloween movie with hot chocolate. Since we're in Idaho we get all 4 seasons and it is GORGEOUS here! We soak it up like you would not believe. The girls get more excited for this holiday than Christmas. It's absolutely hilarious.

Anyways, this soup just might be a strong possibility for soup of choice on our holiday! That's saying something, because they take it seriously and everything has to be perfect.

The original recipe doesn't call for tortellini pasta, but my kids have bottomless stomachs so I threw in a little more substance.

Recipe adapted from: Roasted Vegetable Soup- Pioneer Woman

What you will need:

• 1 large zucchini, sliced in half and then cut in half moons
• 1 yellow squash, sliced in half and then cut in half moons
• 1 yellow onion, sliced
• 1 red and yellow Bell pepper, cut in strips
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 c Olive oil
• 1 T Italian seasoning
• 1/2 T salt
• 1/2 T pepper
• 4 c chicken stock (or vegetable stock)
• 14 oz can stewed tomatoes
• 1 Bay leaf
• 1 c heavy cream

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 475*
• Spray baking sheet with nonstick spray
• Combine all veggies into a large bowl with olive oil and seasonings to toss to chat
• Arrange vegetables on baking sheet in an even layer and roast for 15 minutes
• Add vegetables into crock pot with stewed tomatoes, chicken stock, heavy cream and Bay leaf
• Cook on low for 3 hours
• Remove Bay leaf and blend soup until it's reached desired texture

Olive Garden Bread Sticks Copycat

My family is no stranger to the Olive Garden. My husband worked there off and on for 8 years, including working as the culinary assistant. So he gave me a few pointers on these bread sticks, but part of it just wasn't going to happen (drenching them in "well it's not really butter....I think it's worse than margarine. It melts at room temperature so they just paint it on until it's completely saturated"), and some wasn't possible (being shipped to my doorstep so I can just pop them in the oven).

I feel like the flavor of these were super spot on and extremely delicious. They were all eaten in a few minutes! The texture was mostly there, but I think I kneaded my dough too long by accident so they weren't as soft! I also didn't portion out  or "roll" the dough at all. I chose a much easier way, which turned out to work perfect! So I'll write the recipe the way it originally is from Cooking Classy , but I'll include my notes at the bottom, too :).

PS- most of my pictures for the next few months will be sad to look at. I don't have any special lighting so once it's dark so early, I'm working with dark natural light and bright awkward artificial light. So it is what it is!

What you will need:

• 1 C + 2 T warm water
• 1 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
• 2 T sugar, divided
• 3-3 1/4 C flour*
• 1 3/4 tsp. salt
• 3 T vegetable oil
• salt*
• 2 T butter
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder*

Directions:

•  Using the whisk attachment (or just a whisk yourself), whisk together the warm water and yeast with 1/2 tsp sugar until the years is dissolved
• Let that sit for a good 10 minutes until it's nice and frothy
• Add in the reamining sugar (1 T+ 2 1/2 tsp)
• Add in the salt
• Add in the vegetable oil and, using the paddle attachment, blend until just combined
• Add in 1 1/2 C of the flour and blend until just combined
• Switch to the dough hook and add the last 1 1/2 C of flour while the dough hook kneads the dough until the dough is pulling away from the sides, smooth and elastic (still slightly sticky), adding in up to another 1/4 c of flour if needed*
• Place ball of dough into a greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap to raise in a warm setting for about 1 1/2 hours
• Pinch down risen dough
• Divide dough into 12 equal pieces (2 oz. each by weight)*
• Roll each piece into a 9" rope*
• Place each rope onto a buttered baking sheet
• Cover and let them raise again for another hour
• Preheat oven to 425*
• Bake for 11-13 minutes*
• Run the end of a stick of butter over the top of the bread sticks straight out of the oven
• Sprinkle on the salt and garlic powder

My notes-
*It says you can add up to 1/4 C more of flour, but I found that after the initial 3 C it was plenty
*I would reccomend not using regular table salt. Something a big bigger or more crunchy is nice. I just used some Kosher salt with a tad bigger
*I didn't measure out the salt or the garlic powder, I just sprinkled them on until it looked right
*Instead of portioning everything out, I rolled out the dough into a large square. Using a pizza cutter, I trimmed off the edges so I had a nice straight sided square. After that I cut strips into the dough with the pizza cutter horizontally, and then one slice down the middle vertically, so I had strips of dough.
I put them on the baking sheet and kind of sculpted the ends just a little so they were a bit more "round" but it's not necessary. They'll still come out round once they've baked!
*Since my bread sticks were a little shorter, they were done after 8 minutes and I turned the broiler on the for the last few seconds to get the golden brown look

Cheesy Garlic Bread Sticks

So I usually make garlic bread with some nice bread from the bakery and my own garlic butter spread. So when I found this recipe for dough to make bread sticks I had to try it out! She and I do our garlic spread a bit different but I'm sure either way will be delicious! My husband was going to be late for dinner and I literally had to bribe my kids to leave him some of these. They were extremely upset, but obliged and left him 3. He took one bite and "MMMMMMMM" with his eyes closed. They're good. Real good.

What you will need:

Bread Sticks (can also be used for pizza dough!)

• 1 C warm water (I aim for 110*)
• 2 1/4 Active Dry Yeast
• 1 T sugar
• 2 tsp. salt
• 2 T olive oil
• 3 C bread flour (I used all purpose and it still ended up amazing! I only ended up using 2 3/4 C)

Garlic Butter Spread (and cheeses)

• 6 T butter, softened
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 T seasonings of your choice ( I used a blend of some rosemary and thyme but get creative! Or skip this step, it won't matter :) )
• Grated Parmesan cheese to taste
• Grated Mozzarella cheese  to taste

Directions:

Bread Sticks

• In your mixing bowl, sprinkle the yeast and sugar over your warm water and let it activate and foam up
• Add salt, olive oil and half the flour to the mixing bowl and combine
• Add flour 1/2 C at a time until your dough is sticky but won't come off onto your fingers when you touch it
• Knead the dough for 6 minutes exactly 
• The dough will be able to scoop out of the bowl and not be stuck to the sides
• Scoop the dough out and mold it into a bowl
• Spray your mixing bowl with non stick spray and put the ball of dough back in
• Cover with plastic wrap or cover with a towel and place somewhere warm to rise for 1-2 hours
•  Preheat the oven to 500*
• Roll out the dough out into a nice big circle
• Spread the garlic butter all over on top
• Sprinkle both your cheeses on top (I also added a little parsley to mine)
• Bake in the oven for 9 minutes

Garlic Butter Spread

• Grate garlic into the softened butter and mix together
• Add your seasonings (optional) and combine
• Spread over dough
• Top with cheese