I love that my mom is 1200 miles away, but she's still able to give me her cooking advice via the phone! I was all set and ready to get to work on tonight's dinner when I suddenly realized that I needed some advice on the recipe. So, I called up The Nan and she instilled her cooking brilliance upon me! :) Thanks mommy!!!
Tonight's dinner was Italian Bean with Ground Turkey and Spinach Soup. By the way, I have designated Sundays to be my "SOUPer" day! haha.... Look for a new soup/stew recipe each Sunday! (PS - I'm totally going to be classifying chili as a "stew"!)
The recipe I was going to follow was one I found online, but I altered it so much that I'm calling it my own! I added many more ingredients and kinda did my own thing! But, in case you want the original, here it is!
The first thing I did was cut up carrots (1 medium carrot), celery (1 celery stalk), and 1/2 of a very ginormous yellow onion.
I love onion - can you tell!?! :)
I then put 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil into a large pot and heated it up. When the oil was hot, I threw in my bowl of veggies and cooked for about 4-5 minutes. Once the onions started to become translucent, I added 4 cups of chicken stock and some rosemary and thyme. Oh yeah, and throw in some salt and pepper too! I let that come to a boil and then simmered for about 15 minutes.
This my friends, will make your entire house smell amazing.
Once the 15 minutes is up, strain the veggies and toss 'em! The whole point in doing this is to create a better-flavor broth! (Again - thanks mom - who knew!?!).
Side note - this is the broth I used along with the spices.
I'm LOVING that they sell unsalted chicken broth. Who wants all that extra sodium!?! Not me!
After I strained the veggies, I began browning the ground turkey and garlic (mmm, garlic!!!). At this point, I also threw a pot of water on and let it come to a boil. This will come into play very shortly. You'll also want to cut up more veggies - 3 medium carrots and 1 celery stalk. Dice 'em up whatever size you want, but these gems will be thrown into the pot soon!
Next time I'll add more!
Once the water is boiling, toss in JUST the carrots and time it for 2 minutes. After those 2 minutes are up, toss in the celery and time for 4 minutes. When those 4 minutes are up, add the veggies (add JUST the veggies, not the water!!!) right to the broth that you were cookin' up earlier!
By now your ground turkey should be ready to be drained. Once it's drained, toss it in the broth, along with a can of Cannellini beans (drained and rinsed) and a can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes. When I looked into the pot, I wasn't happy with the amount of liquid, so I opened up another carton of broth and threw in 4 cups. I wanted lots of leftovers!!!!
The cannellini beans don't come "low-sodium", but the tomatoes do! :)
Once everything is in the pot, let it come to a boil and then simmer for 5 minutes. While this is going on, get out some baby spinach and get choppin'! :)
I used about 2 handfuls... it was just the right amount!
After your soup has been simmering for 5 minutes, toss in the spinach and let it simmer another 5 minutes.
Once that's done, your soup is ready to go! :)
Ladel that deliciousness into a bowl, butter up some whole-wheat italian bread, and dive in! :)
Isn't my Valentine's Day place mat adorable!?!?! :)
Want to know the best part about making a pot of soup???
LEFTOVERS!!!!!
You bet I'll be enjoying some of this throughout the week!!!
So, here's the breakdown of ingredients!
Italian Bean with Ground Turkey and Spinach Soup
2 32oz cartons of Chicken Broth (8 cups)
4 carrots (1 carrot should be chopped 1/4 of an inch. The other 3 can be diced.)
2 celery stalks (1 celery stalk should be chopped 1/4 of an inch. The other can be diced.)
1/2 yellow onion (Chopped 1/4 of an inch)
4-5 cloves of garlic, minced
olive oil
1lb ground turkey
1 15-oz can of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-oz can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp rosemary
1/2 tsp thyme
salt
pepper
baby spinach (few handfuls), chopped
After enjoying a bowl, I asked Shaun for his opinion. He gave it rave reviews. When I asked him to give me ONE thing I could do differently, he suggested maybe using chicken sausage chunks instead of ground turkey. He also said I could have made it spicier, which I agree. We like our food ON FIRE!!!
Enjoy making the yummy soup! It would be perfect on a cold winter day!
I'm off to continue being bored to tears with these Golden Globes.... I swear, each year, I question my decision to waste an entire night watching an award show where I haven't seen any of the programs or movies that are nominated for awards. Somehow, Jersey Shore, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and Tori and Dean are never up for awards! ha!
Goodnight!
Sweet Hugs,
Lauren
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