I really need to post this before I forget the recipe myself.  I'm a big fan of getting an idea for something and running with it, as well as making a soup out of whatever is in the fridge and pantry. In light of that, I give you this incredibly easy and inexpensive weeknight soup that tastes slow-cooked, but isn't. Sorry, guys - I'll take a photo next time!

Smoked Sausage Tortellini Soup

2-3 cloves minced garlic
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 link turkey smoked sausage (fully cooked), cut in rounds, then in half again
1 32 oz carton chicken broth
1 can fire-roasted diced tomatoes
1/2 cup shredded carrots
1 can great northern beans (or cannellini beans, if you prefer)
1 cup fresh spinach, roughly chopped
1 pkg cheese-filled tortellini*

* I used the fresher, refrigerated variety-  like Buitoni. If you don't care for this, can't find it or already have the dried stuff, just par-boil if beforehand. 

Heat a little olive oil in a stock pot and start sauteing your onions, carrots and garlic, then toss in your chopped sausage to brown up a bit, then your tomatoes and beans and cook for another 5 minutes.  Add all of the chicken broth and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for about 20 minutes. Add your chopped spinach and let it wilt for about 2-3 minutes, then add your tortellini and let it cook for about 5-10 more - but make sure the pasta doesn't cook so long that it explodes or gets mushy.  Slow and low!  Toss a little shredded Parmesan on the finished product, and serve with some crusty bread and a salad.  You're welcome.

Wings, dip, now casserole.  Is there any format that you can't find Buffalo chicken in?  I would say milkshake, but I'm sure it exists somewhere.  I didn't come up with this recipe - Betty Crocker did, but wanted to share it with you guys, because it was easy and damn tasty.  Follow your nose!

I cooked my chicken halfway through prior to tossing it in the wing sauce, because I'm funny about tossing raw chicken into a casserole with other ingredients.  Yes, I'm a spazz - but it didn't dry out.  Here's a photo of how ours turned out. The only thing I might go flip mode on next time is cutting the bleu cheese dressing a smidge with some ranch.  It was a bit overwhelming for a couple of folks who never use that dressing.

• 1 box whole wheat thin spaghetti
• 1 pound turkey breast, cut into cubes or roughly chopped*
• 1/4 C dry white wine
  
• 8 oz mushrooms, sliced (fresh or canned will work)
  3/4 cup frozen sweet peas, thawed
• 3/4 cup milk
• 2/3 cup reduced fat sour cream
• 1/3 cup shredded parmesan cheese (any hard Italian cheese will work)
• 1 can cream of chicken soup (condensed)
• 1/2 C panko bread crumbs, seasoned w/salt & oregano
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted\
• *If you don't have leftovers, here's what to do. Get turkey breast cutlets and season them w/salt, pepper, garlic & onion powder and pan fry them until they hit 165 degrees, then chop'em up.

I have never been a fan of mushrooms themselves, but if you put mushroom sauce or cream of mushroom soup in something, I'm immediately interested.  The rich flavor of it has always been really comforting to me, which likely leads back to this dish that my mom always made when I was a kid.

I love using ramekins for tiny casseroles, especially when the recipe makes four. That way we have portion-controlled entrees for two nights. I tried this recipe first using lightly buttered (frozen & thawed) hash browns on the bottom of each dish, but it just didn't fit with the rest of the ingredients.  Since the wild rice always worked so well in my mom's casserole, I went back to that for the base of this one. Mr. FvF and I both agreed it was the perfect amendment to an already great recipe.  Here's what you'll need...



1/2 lb sage sausage, crumbled and browned
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup frozen peas & carrots, thawed
1/4 C cream or milk
1 pkg long grain & wild rice, OR 1 1/2 cups frozen hash browns, thawed
salt & pepper, to taste
1/4 C panko bread crumbs
2 tbsp butter, melted

I love a good short cut, and the Uncle Ben's microwavable long grain & wild rice is just as good as the stuff you have to cook yourself.  90 seconds and it's done.  Either way, line your ramekins with about 1/4 cup of the rice and press it down in the bottom and slightly up the sides with a spatula or spoon.
Once your sausage is cooked, crumbled and drained, mix it with the soup, milk and veggies.  Peas and carrots work really well, but I also threw in some fresh spinach.  And of course, if I were cooking these for myself, I'd throw in some sauteed onion as well.

Divvy this mixture up over the rice, then mix together your melted butter and bread crumbs and divvy that up over all four dishes as well.  Bake for 20 minutes or so at 350.

There's really no sense in posting dozens of tiny updates about the new products I've loved and loathed over the last couple of months, so I'm going to try to compile them all for you.  A lot of them are things we've come to rely on after realizing that creating every side dish (or main course) from scratch becomes a thing of the past when your growing baby wants to be entertained all the time.

Trader Joe's Butternut Squash Risotto - Smelled terrible.  Y'know how sometimes squash can smell like BO when it cooks with a lot of pepper?  Yeah, that.  On the bright side, it was delicious!

Trader Joe's Polenta Provencale - Boom.  Our new favorite ready-made side dish.  Little nuggets of polenta with frozen-yet-fresh-tasting veggies in a wonderful spicy cream sauce.

Kellogg's Krave Cereal (chocolate) - Tastes like the marshmallows from Count Chocula, but surprisingly not-hateful nutrition facts.  120 cals, 24 carbs and 3 grams of fiber. For being fairly low in sugars, the chocolate is very sweet, so I'm not sure I'd be interested in trying the double chocolate.

Barber's Stuffed Chicken - Available in Broccoli Cheese, Cordon Bleu, Brie & Apple, Chicken Kiev.  So far, we've tried all but the Kiev and they've all been very tasty.  Only drawback is that it's not truly a "stuffed breast."  It IS all white meat, but rib meat is also used.  I'm normally very picky about frozen chicken items, and these don't bug me out.  Especially with the convenience factor and fairly friendly nutrition facts, these are a weekly staple for us.  We've also tried the Koch Oven Cravers - which are the same idea, only not breaded.  All of those have been good as well.

Trader Joe's Better'n Peanut Butter - Well, it probably would have been great.  I remember it being too sweet for sandwiches, but it may have been great for baking.  Why am I speaking hypothetically, you might ask?  Because it was supposed to be shelf stable for 2-3 months, according to the expiration date, and the shit molded less than one week after I opened it, and the jar was sealed tight.  This is one of maybe ten times in the last year that I have either bought spoiled food from TJ's or it has spoiled within a day or two.  Boooooooo.

Anycrap, after my brief match with Prednisone in October, about 8 pounds have crept back on, and I simply am not havin' that shit.  So, our lunches and dinners are going back to the lower end of the glycemic index, as to make nice with our waistlines again.  


A lot of South Beach recipes don't appeal to me that much, so sometimes I'll take Adkins recipes and cut a lot of the fat out of them.  Everyone loves the lettuce cups at PF Chang's, but i don't have the patience to dice chicken or the stomach to put it in a food processor and think it'll ever be clean enough again.  I really don't care for ground chicken, either, since I'm allergic to nasty.

This is all comprised of shit that we almost *always* have on-hand at Chez FvF.  Wicked easy, and the dude loved it.  Here's what you'll need:

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or thighs, if you prefer)

 2 tsp olive oil  

 2 minced shallots 

3 tbsp dijon mustard 

3 tbsp balsamic vinegar (white wine vinegar works, too)

1 tbsp butter 

7-10 oz fresh spinach 

salt and pepper

Let me preface this by saying - and you may want to sit down - but, prior to this, I'd never eaten Indian food before. I used to be a real nervous Nelly about trying new things, but once I got past that - I just never got around to trying it.  So, I really haven't a clue how authentic (or not) this recipe is.  But, aside from a few spices I needed to pick up, it was something I already had all the ingredients for and seemed easy enough. Here's what you'll need: 

2 Tbsp olive oil 

1 cup diced onion 

1 1/2 tsp cumin powder 

1 1/2 tsp ground cardamom 

2 tsp coriander powder 

1 tsp turmeric powder 

1/4 tsp ground cloves 

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon 

1 tsp to 

1/2 Tbsp red pepper flakes (or more, to taste)

2 tsp minced fresh ginger 

2 tsp minced garlic 

2 Tbsp tomato paste 

1 can petite diced tomatoes 

3 chicken breasts, 

2 chicken breasts, diced (raw)

A while back, Mr. FvF and I stopped into Bob Evan's for lunch and he went on all day about how great the chicken and noodles were. I'd had it before, and it was no match for my mom's chicken and noodles, so I realized I was going to have to whip up a batch soon for him to realize Bob's wasn't all that. This will feed a small army, is fairly inexpensive and WAY easy. Here's what you'll need:

Danger, danger - high voltage! By voltage, I mean cholesterol. For the most part, I try to cook healthier meals here at Chez FvF. But, once in a while I see something so sinful that I simply must recreate it here at home. Enter: Dorito Dogs. While not nearly the arterial Hoover Dam that BBDs are, these still aren't anywhere near good for you. But, your husband and kids will treat you like you've just cured cancer for at least 6 hours after serving them. Well, my husband is always that nice and we have no children to please, so why do I still make shit like this? Because I can. As the great Roseanne Rosannadanna once explained, "It's always something. If food doesn't kill me, I'll get hit by a bus!"

I couldn't believe my husband had never had a dish that contains his own surname. I mean, if you're bob Smith and there was a dish called "Pork Chops a la Smith," wouldn't you have tried it by now? Well, now that it's my namesake, too, I figured it was time to try recreating another one of my childhood favorites - Chicken a la King.

Melt butter over medium heat and add drained mushrooms and green pepper, cook for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat.
Blend in the flour, salt, and pepper and cook over low - stirring constantly, until it's bubbly.
Stir in instant bouillon, milk, water, and reserved mushroom liquid. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly and cook for 1-2 minutes without reducing heat.
Stir in chicken and pimiento and heat through.

I'm not sure why it never occurred to me to make chilaquiles for dinner. It's one of the easiest dishes ever if you use pre-made ingredients. Even if you make everything from scratch, it's still only about a 30 minute dish. Here's what you'll need:

We always have plenty of cheese on hand for snackin', so a lot of times, I'll put stuffed burgers on the menu for the week and have no clue what I'm going to do with them until the moment hits me. This past week, Kroger had some decent looking smoked gouda on sale - and few things go better with gouda (besides more gouda) than bacon (which of course, we also always have on hand).

Bacon & Smoked Gouda Burgers

1 lb ground chuck (80/20)
4 oz smoked gouda, cut into cubes
3-4 tbsp bread crumbs
4 slices of bacon, cooked crisp & coarsely chopped
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cracked pepper
1 clove garlic, minced

Garlic Paprika Aioli
3 tbsp mayo
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 minced garlic clove
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp smoked paprika


Combine all of the ingredients with your hands until very well mixed and form into patties. My personal preferred method is to make them into giant meatballs and flatten them just slightly - that way they don't cook too quickly or overcook. If you spy any of the cheese cubes poking out, thumb them back in and cover it up with ground beef. This will keep the precious cheese from oozing out during cooking when it starts to melt.

Toss them onto a hot grill (or cast iron, if you're sans grill) for about 3-5 minutes per side, or until they've got just a little give left to them, much like a medium steak (should create the same resistance as touching your nose with your finger). Don't squish the burger with the spatula. Love your burger, and let it keep all of it's juices. Love it!

As loyal readers know, Mr. FvF hates onions, otherwise I'd stuff those in, too. So, I like to caramelize some for myself and top the burger with it.