Italian Spinach Soup

This soup we made was a request for my birthday dinner. We served it with Italian bread and a salad with sun dried tomatoes, avocado, fresh mozzarella and our home made garlic dressing! For my dessert I had a pumpkin cheese cake, recipe coming soon, and for my special breakfast Maple Walnut Muffins.

Italian spinach soup

ingredients

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tsp. dried Italian seasoning, crushed
• 2 Tbsp. butter
• 2 Tbsp. dry sherry (optional)
• 2 14-oz. cans chicken broth
• 1 large potato, peeled and chopped
• 2 9-oz. pkgs. fresh spinach or 1-1/4 lb. fresh spinach, washed and trimmed
• 2 cups watercress, tough stems removed
• 2 oz. Parmesan cheese, shaved
• 2 small tomatoes, quartered, seeded and thinly sliced

directions

1. In 4-quart Dutch oven cook onion, garlic, and Italian seasoning in hot butter over medium heat 5 minutes or until onion is tender, stirring occasionally.

2. If using sherry, remove Dutch oven from heat; slowly pour in sherry. Return to heat; cook and stir 1 minute. Add broth and potato. Bring to boiling. Simmer, covered, 10 minutes or until potato is tender. Remove from heat.

3. Set aside 2 cups of the spinach. Stir remaining spinach, half at a time, into soup just until wilted. Cook about 5 minutes.

4. Transfer soup, half at a time, to food processor or blender; cover and process or blend until smooth. Return to Dutch oven; heat through. Season with salt.

5. To serve, top with reserved spinach, watercress, Parmesan, and tomatoes. Makes 6 side-dish servings.

nutrition facts

• Calories 151,
• Total Fat (g) 7,
• Saturated Fat (g) 4,
• Monounsaturated Fat (g) 2,
• Polyunsaturated Fat (g) 0,
• Cholesterol (mg) 18,
• Sodium (mg) 881,
• Carbohydrate (g) 16,
• Total Sugar (g) 3,
• Fiber (g) 4,
• Protein (g) 8,
• Vitamin C (DV%) 65,
• Calcium (DV%) 23,
• Iron (DV%) 16,
• Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet

Espresso Banana Muffins

As I am sure you all remember about our Banana Cooler, well this is basically the same thing but in chewable form:-) We Love these delicious muffins, and just because they have coffee in them doesn't mean we skipped our morning coffee. By all means NO! I think we probably drank more coffee then usual. One bite.................. and it will give you more cravings for more of that coffee flavor:-)

Espresso Banana Muffins

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/3 cup coarsely chopped walnuts, toasted
1 Tablespoon of fine espresso powder or instant espresso powder
6 Tablespoons Oil
1/3 cup honey
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup plain yogurt
3 mashed bananas


Heat oven to 375, butter 12 muffin cups. Combine the flour,baking powder, salt and espresso powder whisk together. In a separate bowl, beat together oil honey eggs, vanilla, mashed bananas and yogurt. Mix in dry ingredients, stir till just combined. Divide evenly into prepared muffin cups and sprinkle with walnuts. Bake for about 25 min. and till golden brown. Cool 5 min. in pan before serving.

Finally our next wrap recipe!!!!

This week we made three different wraps, but I only have a picture of one of them right now:) I have never heard of a dessert warp recipe have you? Well we made our first ones, they seemed to be a hit at least in our family. If you don't like sweet things don't make these ;0
Why we were able to do so many wraps this week was because at our monthly hymn sing the food of choice to bring was wraps, we made 2 savory warps one was called "Wrap Classico" the other "Thai one on".


ABBA ZABBA

3/4 c. cream cheese, softened
1/3 c. peanut butter
3 T. powdered sugar
1 c, coarsely chopped yogurt covered pretzels
1/3 c. white chocolate chips
1/3 c. salted peanuts
Four 8-inch flour tortillas

Combine the cream cheese and peanut butter in a medium bowl. Mix thoroughly. Stir in the powdered sugar until thoroughly combined. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Divide among the tortillas and wrap. Eat immediately, or refrigerate for up to 1 hr. before serving.


Serves 4 large or 8 small

Ah busy day!

Well, all the cooking for church is over! I made some Challah bread, yikes it got huge, way bigger then it was supposed to! Esther and I put together some cabbage rolls, and we are also bringing a plate of cookies, (pumpkin cranberry oatmeal, and cranberry bars.) For dinner tonight it was kinda a fend for yourself day.............the kids had grilled PB and Honey, and Esther and I had a salad.

We'll see how much updating we do this week, we are very busy with our cookbook, sewing projects, our cookbook, music/teaching and working on our Eleganza strings website.......( our families music group)

Have a wonderful Sabbath everyone!

Hannah

Carrot Cake Cookies

Carrot Cake Cookie Recipe

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
scant 1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1 cup rolled oats
2/3 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup honey, room temperature
1/2 cup unrefined (fragrant) coconut oil, warmed until just melted
1 teaspoon ground ginger

Preheat oven to 375F degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and oats. Add the nuts and carrots. In a separate smaller bowl use a whisk to combine the honey, coconut oil, and ginger. Add this to the flour mixture and stir until just combined.

Drop onto prepared baking sheets, one level tablespoonful at a time, leaving about 2 inches between each cookie. Bake in the top 1/3 of the oven for 10 - 12 minutes or until the cookies are golden on top and bottom.

Cool completely and drizzle with icing.

Cream cheese drizzle

2T. cream cheese softened

2T milk

1T. honey

Cream together, and add more milk or cream cheese to get your desired consistency.

Makes about 2 1/2 dozen cookies.

The requested recipes!!!!

You all want the recipes right? Well were not going to give it to you, ya you read right WE ARE NOT GOING TO GIVE THEM TO YOU!!!! Well not just quite yet........we will give them to you when you buy our cook book that is in the process of being published! Hopefully it will be ready for sale before the end of the year. The cook book is going to feature all recipes containing oatmeal that can be served at breakfast. So an oatmeal breakfast cook book, we have not decided on a name so if you all have any ideas we would love to hear them! Neat time we will give you the titles of the recipes so you can have a little appetizer before you get the full course meal(cook book):)

The DeL Sisters

Sweet Potato Cherve Wanut Salad with Creamy Balsalmic Dressing

Yummy! This Salad was so scrumptious! On Tuesday of last week we had sweet potatoes for lunch, so on Wednesday we decided to use up the leftover baked sweet potatoes on a salad. Esther and I thought of some changes that we would make if we were to have more time to prepare it; Grill the baked Sweet Potatoe slices, ( they would need to be a little al dente to do this so they wouldn't fall apart) Toast the Walnuts, and use cranberry Cherve cheese, and maybe sprinkle with a few dries cranberries.

What do you normally do with sweet potatoes?


Here is the recipe: serves 1-2 depending on how hungry you are!

21/2c. of baby spinach
1 sweet potato cooked then cut into 1/4in. slices
1/4c. crumbled cherve cheese
2T. walnuts

Top spinach with remaining ingredients, and drizzle with dressing.

The dressing
2T. balsamic vinegar
2t. sour cream
2t. olive oil
pepper

Mix and store in refridgerator