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

Spatchcock Chicken and Veggies

This recipe is something we do SO OFTEN. It's simple and all the kids love it. Not to mention, it gives you a ton left to save and make some chicken broth with. We have made this several different ways over time, but this is our favorite! You want a nice crispy skin with a juicy and tender chicken. Enjoy!

What you will need:

• 1 whole chicken
• 4 T olive oil (divided)
• Any seasonings you like
• Veggies if you like

Directions:

• Prepare your oven by placing the rack in the center and preheating the oven to 475*
• Prepare your pan by using a baking sheet that's been sprayed with cooking spray and drizzled with a couple tablespoons of olive oil
• Rinse your chicken and pat it dry on a towel covered cutting board
• Reach inside the neck and remove any giblets and bits there may be in there.
• Lay the chicken breast side down and find the backbone
• Cut alone both sides of the backbone with some kitchen scissors
• Flip the chicken back over and lay it breast side up on the prepared baking sheet
• Press down firmly on the middle of the chicken and the breastbone will break, allowing the chicken to lay more flat on the pan
• Rub with the remaining olive oil and sprinkle with seasonings
• Cook chicken at 475* for 30 minutes
• Decrease temperature to 400*. If potatoes are part of your preferred veggies, add them to the pan at this point. Cook for another 25 minutes
• If you have any other veggies, at them to the pan at this point and cook for another ten minutes, or until center of the chicken breast has reached at least 160*

Rock Fish Taco & Not Gross Slaw

I guess one cool thing about having a recipe blog as my "job" is that I get to decide when I do it. So, here I am months and months after my last post (which wasn't even a recipe). We were blessed with our 4th child at the end of August and I decided to focus on that! Things have settled and I am good to go now. Wahoo!

My father in law took a fishing trip to Alaska and caught some amaaazing Rock fish. He had it filleted there and fresh frozen to bring back for us! Ooooh it was a beauty. Since it's more a mild fish, we were trying to think of what to do with it and how to season it. We decided we'd take the fish taco route. We were SHOCKED at the amazing flavor the fish had on its own! Somehow the seasonings were paired really well with it to where you could taste the seasoning and the fish both separately while having the flavors compliment each other as well.

Now, about the slaw. My husband and I are not slaw people. We can't even figure out how there are so many people who are. It makes zero sense to us. But, we couldn't just not have slaw with it. It's a fish taco. So this is a slaw that works without being the gross slaw ;). I actually just drizzled the dressing made for the slaw on my taco by itself without the slaw at all. My husband did both. We taste tested the dressing for the slaw and it was really good, but we were a little baffled that there was no garlic in it. "Should we add garlic? We never skip garlic. Should we? It's good without it....but we love garlic so much. Yes? No?" We didn't add any! Who are we?! It just had this magic flavor that seemed so right with a fish taco, we left it as is.

So, here's the deal. My husband knows a guy named George. He's our food guy. Everyone should have a food guy. He recommended Sazon Goya seasoning, claiming that, "if you don't want to spend the money on saffron, but want incredible taste, go with Sazon Goya." Yes, sir. Correct, sir.

(For the record, with the going price of a lb. of saffron being anywhere from $500-$5000, I don't buy saffron. I have tried it exactly one time at a brunch at The Grand America and I didn't like it. So I was nervous at his recommendation for this in place of saffron. Like I said, though, he was correct. Trust the process.)

What you will need:

Fish-

• Rock Fish fillets (I mean, if you don't have Rock Fish freshly caught in Alaska...cod will do ;) )
• 1 packet Sazon Goya seasoning
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. pepper
• 1 T oil 

Slaw-

• Green cabbage, julienne
• Red onion, sliced
• Cilantro, chopped
• jalapeno, diced

Dressing for the slaw-

• 1/2 C salsa verde
• 1/4 C mayo
• 1 T lime
• Hot sauce to taste
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions:

Fish-

• Bring a large saute pan to medium-high heat and add the T of oil
• Rinse your fillets and pat dry
• Rub Sazon Goya and salt/pepper on each side of the fillets
• Lay each fillet in the pan and cook each side 2-3 minutes

Slaw-

• Slice, chop and dice ingredients and add to a bowl.
• I don't have any measurements, just go with "some of each" and see where it gets you. Live on the edge.

Dressing for the slaw-

• Add each ingredient into a blender and blend until it's all mixed until smooth and saucy.
• Pour the dressing over the slaw and mix well
• Maybe reserve some on its own in case you just want to drizzle the goodness by itself. Like me. Be like me.

Kielbasa Corn

It sounds so simple. Turkey Kielbasa and corn. Now I'm trying to figure out how I lived my life before it. I seriously stared at my computer for a few minutes trying to figure out what to call this. So act like it's something that sounds really delicious and measures up to the unbelievable yumyumness this has. Oo! Yumyumcorn. Kielyumcorn. Yumcornkiel. Kielbasayum!

My husband and I have been putting it on our menu almost every week since the day we first tried it and we obsess over the leftovers. He of course likes it more with onions in it.

That's the beauty of this thing, you can add whatever you want and it'll be great! P
robably not "whatever" you want, but nearly. Heck, take these two ingredients camping and wrap it in some tin foil together to cook over the fire!

I actually like my kielbasa browned a lot more than this, like almost burnt coloring. But I wasn't paying attention while I was shopping because my son brought "moo-moo" (his cow) with us and was mooing at me and demanding I stare at him instead of shop.

So, I grabbed some kind of sausage type stuff that wasn't turkey kielbasa and I didn't love the way it browned or tasted but....we can pretend it's the good stuff here.

What you will need:

• 6-8 ears of corn
• 2 turkey kielbasa 
• Garlic Salt
• Black Pepper
• Onions, peppers, etc. (optional)

Directions:

• Shuck and boil your corn for 10-15 minutes depending on the texture you like
• While that's boiling, slice your kielbasa into coins
• When it's done boiling, set your corn on the side and drain the water from your pot
• Dump your kielbasa coins into that same pot and start to brown the sides (if you're planning on adding onions or other vegetables, go ahead and toss those in for a bit before adding the kielbasa in)
• While the kielbasa is browning, cut the corn off of the cob
• When the kielbasa is browned, add the corn into the pot with the kielbasa and mix together with seasonings

Roasted Vegetables

So I tried out a few different ways to roast vegetables since I'm pretty picky about the whole thing :). I eventually came up with this and to me it is PERFECT! I'm just now getting around to posting about it because every time I make it I end up eating all of it before I can snap a pic.

But this time, I was making a huge amount so I could have it for the week along with some chicken for lunches (chicken at the bottom of the post).

I have been completely forgetting to each lunch lately (perks of having 3 kids and one of them just 4 months old right?) so I figured it was time to do some make-ahead stuff! This is my favorite way for the veggies!

What you will need:

• Red potatoes, quartered
• Asparagus
• Broccoli, chopped
• Green beans
• Or whatever vegetables you like

Directions:

•  Preheat oven to 400*
• Drizzle baking sheet with olive oil
• Lay the potatoes on the baking sheet and roll around in the oil
• Add whatever seasonings you like to the potatoes
• Bake for 10 minutes
• Add the rest of the vegetables onto the baking sheet
• Season again and add a little more oil for the extra vegetables
• Bake for another 25 minutes

Here's my chicken! I just get a package of the chicken tenderloins (they come with about 20) and lay them out on a baking sheet. Add seasonings (I did different seasonings for each row) and bake at 375* for 25 minutes.