Something Smells Yummy

When I saw that a cold front was coming through this week I knew it was time to cook a big ol' pot of soup (even though it is only dropping to the seventies). :) I have no idea why we associate certain foods with certain seasons, but soup is definitely a fall and winter meal in our house. I am starting to explore some Africa friendly recipes as we get closer and closer to our upcoming trip. I borrowed a cook book from the fellowship director's wife recently that she cooked out of when they lived in Rwanda and Kenya. There was a recipe for a Minestrone soup that she marked as a family favorite so I combined it with a recipe that I found on allrecipes. com and it came together quite well. There are lots of ingredients in this soup, but it is really easy to put together. The recipe tells you to cook it on the stove, but I sauteed the garlic, onion, and carrots for a bit and then through it all in a crock pot and cooked it for 6 hours. The carrots still had a little crunch so it probably would have been better closer to 8 hrs. You can adjust the veggies to your liking or what you have available (hence the reason this should be Africa friendly). I also completely forgot to add the pasta to it (which made it far less Italian) but it still tasted great.

Minestrone Soup
3 Tbs. olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped
5 carrots, sliced
6 cups of low sodium chicken broth
2 cups of tomato sauce
1/2 cup of red wine (optional)
1 can of green beans, drained
1 can of kidney beans, drained
1 can of cannellini beans, drained
1 can of diced tomatoes, drained
2 zucchini, quartered and sliced
1 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
2 Tbs. chopped fresh basil
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup of ditalini pasta or seashell pasta
Parmesan cheese, grated on top

(I confess that I omitted the celery because I just don't like it but feel free to throw some back in!)

In a large sauce pan, over medium-low heat, heat olive oil and saute the garlic for 2-3 minutes. Add onion and saute for 3 minutes. Add carrots and saute for another 5 minutes.

Add chicken broth, water, and tomato sauce and bring to a boil stirring frequently. Add the red wine at this point if you want. Reduce heat to low and add cans of beans, tomatoes, zucchini, oregano, basil, and salt and pepper. Simmer for an hour.

Boil the pasta, drain, and set aside. Place a few Tbs. of pasta into each serving bowl and ladle the soup over the top. Grate fresh Parmesan cheese on the top and serve with some warm crusty bread.

So... not to overload you on a REALLY long recipe post but here's another one. As I was cutting carrots yesterday I thought back to my last carrot adventure a few weeks ago (we usually just eat baby carrots so peeling and slicing carrots is a rare occasion for me!). How yummy does this look???

Dean planned a fun dinner/get-together for Dianna's 30th birthday a few weeks ago, and I volunteered to make a cake. He requested a carrot or spice cake for her which I had never made (even though it is Marc's favorite cake, too) However, thanks to my trusty favorite recipe site, I think I pulled it off. Marc couldn't believe that I had never made a cake like that for him in all of his birthdays we have celebrated together. So, this is also probably something I will be making again from scratch in Africa for Marc's birthday in February. :)

Carrot Cake

2 cups white sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup apple sauce (the original recipe called for 1 1/2 cups of oil which seemed like a lot, so this is a substitution for the 1/2 cup I omitted)
4 eggs
3 cups grated carrots
1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350. Grease two 9 inch round cake pans.

Combine the sugar, flour, salt, cinnamon, soda, oil. With an electric mixer beat in the eggs one at a time. Stir in the carrots and the walnuts. Pour the batter into the prepared baking pans.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Let cool. Place your first cake on your serving dish and frost the top of it evenly. Sprinkle walnuts on top and then add your second layer. Frost the rest of the cake all over and then add the remaining walnuts on the top. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

Cream Cheese Frosting
1 package cream cheese, softened (use the real stuff, the low fat stuff is too runny)
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Cream together the cream cheese and butter in a mixing bowl. Mix in the vanilla. Gradually add in the powdered sugar. Store in the refrigerator. I think this is half the original recipe but worked well for my cake.

*The one tip I have is for preparing your carrots. I tried three different ways to grate them because I wasn't sure how small the pieces needed to be to cook well but still show up in the slices when cut. My favorite shred was with using a hand grater (not the micrograte kind) on the small grating side, but it was taking forever. Then, I pulled out my food processor. It grated them pretty small but was SO much easier and certainly the way I will do it next time. Also, a whole bag of carrots was pretty close to 3 cups.

Well, I at least feel caught up on a recipe post. Blogging has become more difficult since I have been back at work over the past six weeks, and if I have to chose to do a post about the kids or share some new recipes, the kids usually win out! :) I have some video of Hailey WALKING that I hope to get posted some time this week. She is 11 months old today!