Soups

So…I had a problem when I was photographing this Chicken Tortilla Soup. No it was not the tortilla chips (although thanks for the vote of confidence). This. Soup. Is. So. Good. It’s like…”put-it-in-the-crockpot-and-go-back-every-five-minutes-to-test-and-see-if-it’s-still-good” good. It’s…”take a small slurp between every shot you take of the recipe” good. It’s “this-soup-may-never-make-it-to-the-dinner-table” good! Thankfully, this is a big batch recipe, so that didn’t happen. …

Spaghetti squash ramen. I know what you’re thinking. “Why for, Nik?” Ok so here’s the truth. I grew up in what one might describe as a…humble…household. And so there were days when ramen was dinner. Which I did not mind at ALL. So let’s get the obvious out of the way. YES ramen is basically noodles and liquid, neither of which …

Question: You ever open the freezer, see the same old meats you always buy, think about making them in the same old ways you always made them, and want to walk in the other direction? That was me last week. I had some country pork ribs. And usually I do the same thing to them. I season them, slow cook …

 “This looks fancy…” That was my youngest daughter’s reaction when she looked at the contents of the slightly modified bowl I presented her this past weekend. (I’ll tell you why the modification in a sec.) Now to her, “fancy” is a good adjective. With the elder girl, not so much. I was quite pleased how this recipe turned out, mostly …

Don’t ask me why, but I’m always hesitant to share recipes that use specialty ingredients. I guess I want you guys all to have fair access to the food I make, but I think my egalitarian attitude has prevented far too many recipes from going on this blog. Well, the buck stops here! I was poking around on Pinterest and found …

    (Heh…Dinner Winner…ok…moving along…)   Dinner! I don’t know about you but it’s always been a challenging meal for me. I think it’s the finality of it all. Like dinner. It means you’re, like, done. With food. For the rest of the day. (In my head.) My issues aside, a good, WLS-friendly dinner the entire family can eat is …

I have a confession to make. I actually go out to eat quite a bit. Much as I love cooking, I also love the restaurant experience. Being more than a few years out, the habits of a WLSer with regards to restaurant eating are pretty second nature. I usually never go to a restaurant where I can’t check out the …

  Those of you who were on Facebook and Twitter last night, and experienced my impromptu “cook-a-long” may wonder what prompted me to make soup, from scratch, after 10 p.m. And that would be a valid question. Yesterday I had a small bout of LPS (Little Pouch Syndrome, or, when you just get full very fast with very little food). …

  …and a lesson about self-care. Since I realize I don’t put date stamps on my blog posts, for future reference this is being posted on December 5, 2013, the day after my 37th birthday. I know many of you wonder what to do on your birthday. In a former life there was cake and ice cream and overly indulgent …

So…I had this head of cabbage. And it was about to go bad. And I could have made my regular “Comforting Cabbage & Sausage Stew.” But alas I didn’t have all the ingredients. But you know what we say around these parts: “Play with your food!” I didn’t change it up much but my goal was three-fold:  Get tomatoes in …