Spicy Cheeseburger Soup

I have quite a collection of cookbooks, most of them have been given to me by family or friends.  I have several that are my favorites and cook out of all the time but needless to say there are recipes that I haven't tried yet even out of my favorite books.  I am really good about marking recipes that I have made with how I changed them or sometimes I write the date and/or occasion in the margins.  This helps me track what I've made and if we liked it or not.  I've also given several of my cookbooks to my daughters and they can see the how I made something by my notes I've made on the recipe.  This Spicy Cheeseburger Soup is one of those recipes that is in one of my favorite books and I have never tried it before this past February.  I love making soup and was looking through my cookbooks for something to make for dinner with supplies that I already had in my refrigerator and freezer and this one fit the bill plus sounded good.  It was so yummy, my husband said it's now one of his favorite soups that I've made.  At my house, I'm known as the "Soup Queen".  I make a lot of yummy soups with a wide variety of ingredients but especially lots of vegetables and my homemade broth. This soup was really easy and the leftovers were great for lunches, it heats up well in the microwave.  The recipe called for a chopped jalapeno pepper and cayenne pepper to make it spicy but I just used sweet peppers and some red chili flakes instead so mine was only a little spicy. I added my go to vegetables of chopped zucchini and yellow squash to the recipe.  The more veggies the better is my motto.

Here's the recipe:

Spicy Cheeseburger Soup

2 lbs. ground hamburger meat, browned and drained

2 c water

2 c cubed peeled potatoes

1/2 to 1 c chopped carrots

1 chopped onion

1 clove minced garlic

1/2 c chopped sweet peppers or 1 jalapeno

2 T sofrito (recipe in earlier blog post)

1 chopped zucchini

1 chopped yellow squash

1/2 t red chili flakes

1/2 to 1 t each seasoned salt and pepper

1 beef bouillon

2 T yellow mustard

3 T flour

2 c milk

2 c shredded cheddar cheese

optional, top with crumbled cooked bacon

In large pot, add a little water, about 1/4 c, flour, onion, garlic, peppers, sofrito and red chili flakes and cook until tender and flour combined.  Add rest of water and vegetables plus salt, pepper and bouillon and cook until veggies are tender, about 20 minutes.  Add cooked meat, milk, cheese and yellow mustard, cook until heated through and bubbly.  Can top servings with crumbled cooked bacon if desired.

Enjoy 

Bamah

Tabitha Homemade Granola Bars

This year my daughter, Tabitha, decided to make her own granola bars after noticing how much trash  the individually wrapped boxed granola bars accumulated.  She looked up recipes online and experimented with several batches until she found ones she liked. She thought that this was a small way she could reduce waste plus eat healthier by reducing how much proceeded food she ate. Homemade granola bars taste so much better than the boxed kind and by playing with the recipe adding different dried fruits, nuts and other types of nut butter the options are endless. They are sweetened with honey but other options are maple syrup or any flavor of jam/jelly or a combination. It's a great way to use up the last bit of jam in a jar. She shared them with me and I loved them so much I decided to make my own as well.  I love homemade food and we try to eat as little proceeded food as possible.  I made 2 different batches using dried cherries, dried cranberries, peanut butter, sunflower seeds, dried coconut and a new sunflower butter that I bought at the farmers market.  They keep in the refrigerator for several weeks so no more boxed granola bars for us. We both have silicone bakeware which worked great, after cooling completely, at least 30 minutes, the bars pop right out. Another option would be any kind of baking pan lined with parchment paper to be able to lift out and cut into bars.

liquid mixture combined with oat mixture

Here's the recipe:

2/3 c. honey or maple syrup or jam/jelly (or combination)

4 T butter



4 T peanut or nut butter

3 T brown sugar

1 t vanilla

1/8 t salt

3 c oats

3/4 c chopped nuts, or sunflower seeds

2 c or 1 pkg. of dried cranberries, cherries or any kind of dried fruit combination



In a large bowl, combine oats, dried fruit and nuts, set aside. In a small saucepan over low/medium heat melt butter, peanut butter, honey, brown sugar, vanilla and salt until all combined and brown sugar is dissolved.  Pour liquid over oat mixture and stir to combine. Spoon into silicone baking bar pan or parchment line baking pan and bake at 350 for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown.  Let cool completely in pan for at least 30 minutes so bars can set, if take out too soon, bars will crumble. Store in refrigerator in Ziploc bag or airtight container.  Will keep 2 to 3 weeks in refrigerator. Recipe makes about 24 bars.

Enjoy,

Bamah




my silicone pan and bars



Tabitha's granola bars and silicone pan



granola yummy goodness