Oh Boy! Soup!

My husband’s family loves to tell the story of his mother’s famous, or maybe infamous, Oh Boy Soup. She would make a huge batch of soup with whatever leftovers she had in the refrigerator.  These ingredients could be anything, but it would always make A LOT.  So when the oldest son was in school and would come home and ask “What’s for dinner?” ,  the response would be “Soup”.   Initially, his reply was “Oh Boy! Soup!”  but then it became “oh boy....soup.”   The name stuck.

  

I have not been brave enough to venture into creating an Oh Boy Soup of my own yet.   I stick with a rotation of a handful of recipes.  They are great meals for us – they are warm comfort foods and make enough for leftovers for a few days.  Unfortunately, I keep my recipes all over the place, so I thought that I would consolidate my favorites into a blog for my convenience.  Matched up with a pan of cornbread or a grilled pepper jack on wheat, all of these make a great meal.  

7 Can Soup  (from Big T’s Aunt Gail)

1 can Hormel chili with beans

1 can Hormel chili without beans
1 can Rotel tomatoes
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can Campbell’s tomato soup
1 can Del Monte mixed vegetables
1 can whole kernel corn

Dump all cans into Dutch oven and warm on medium-low until thoroughly heated; about 30 minutes. Do not let boil.

Tomato Florentine(from allrecipes.com)

2 cans (14.5 oz) chicken broth

1 can chopped stewed tomatoes
12 oz (1 ½ c.) V8
1 can Campbell’s tomato soup
1 T. sugar
1 10 oz pkg frozen chopped spinach
1 pinch nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste
½ c. cooked elbow macaroni (whole grain)

Combine broth, tomatoes, juice, and soup in a saucepan with a wire whisk over medium heat. Add sugar, spinach, nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste, without thawing spinach. Allow to heat gently 20 minutes on medium-low until spinach is tender. Keep hot without letting it boil.  Add cooked pasta and cook for 10 minutes longer.

Easy Potato Soup

1 pkg frozen shredded hash browns (2 lb)
1 32 oz  container fat-free chicken broth
1 pkg Pioneer white country gravy mix
½ c. water
½ c. chopped green onions
Optional: bacon bits, cheese

Combine hash browns and chicken broth in Dutch oven.  Bring to boil, turn to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes.  In a separate bowl, stir together water with gravy mix.  Add mixtures to potatoes, let simmer until thickened.  Remove from heat.  Serve hot with green onions and other toppings.  I have been known to add a package of cubed ham for a Ham and Potato Soup.

Chicken (sometimes noodle) Soup

1 can fat-free chicken broth
1 can Campbell’s Healthy Request cream of chicken soup
1 can water
1 boneless skinless chicken breast, cooked and chopped  (canned chicken can be substituted in a pinch)
leftover spaghetti or angel hair pasta, if available
½ tsp. black pepper
½ tsp. garlic powder

Mix all ingredients in large saucepan.  Warm on medium-low until thoroughly heated.  I invented this recipe when I was single and sick with a terrible cold.  Not feeling like going to the store, I just used what I had on hand.  It was tolerable, so I kept it. 

Taco Soup

1 lb ground beef
½ c. chopped onions
1 can pinto beans
1 can chili beans
1 can Rotel tomatoes
1 can diced tomatoes
1 pkg taco seasoning mix
1 packet Hidden Valley Ranch dry mix

Brown ground beef with chopped onion and drain well.  Combine with other ingredients and warm on medium-low.  This can also be warmed in a crock pot on low heat for a couple of hours.

Update 12/27/13
Black Bean Chicken Soup 
2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
3 10 oz cans white meat chicken, drained
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can Rotel tomatoes
1 can corn
2 cans (or 4 cups) chicken broth
1 c. chopped onion
2 T. cumin
2 T. garlic powder
2 t. black pepper

Mix all and warm in large saucepan or dutch oven.

Breakfast Burrito

It’s the most important meal of the day.   Yet, I have always struggled with knowing what is the best choice for me – healthy and filling and fast.   When I met with the nutritionist, she made some suggestions, and with lots of trial and error and calculations, I have finally come up with my go-to breakfast for the work week – the Plain Jane Breakfast Burrito.  I call this Plain Jane because all I use is meat, no peppers, onions, or mushrooms like in other burritos and omelets.  But I might add mushrooms one of these days.

The key to keeping this low-cal and low-carb (per the nutritionist) is being picky about the wrap.  I read the labels of all of the tortillas available and tried the La Tortilla Factory brand, since they were low carb.  Next, I started out using real eggs but decided to try egg beaters one week.  They were not terrible and I still felt full, so for convenience and better numbers, I have stuck with them.  And last, the meat choice.  Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage Crumbles is what I use most often.  I only use ¼ cup of the crumbles with ¼ cup of the egg beaters, so the package will last about two work weeks.   For variety I have used three slices of Publix thin sliced cooked ham or a couple of slices of leftover bacon.  I don’t add it to the eggs;  I just put them in the tortilla and cook the egg beaters by themselves and slap on top.  If I am out of everything else, I have been known to use some Oscar Meyer Bacon pieces.  Really, you can add anything – the aforementioned veggies, cheese, etc.  Just be sure that you check your nutritional values on everything.  Myfitnesspal.com is one of many websites that will calculate the nutritional value for any recipe or list of ingredients.

So after I add my sausage, I let it cook while I grab my lunch and pack it.  Then I flip it when it looks set, and turn the stove off.  Then I grab my diet Coke and my afternoon snack and pack those.  By then, it is ready to be assembled and wrapped in foil and in a few seconds – ta da – burrito ready to go.  By the time I get to work, everything is good and warm and I can have my breakfast while I check my morning emails.

The burrito with ¼ c. egg beaters and ¼ c. turkey sausage is 115 calories, 12 g of carbs, 7 g of fiber, 17 g of protein, and 565 g of sodium. 

Easy Peezy Crock Pot Roast

Yet again, I have allowed myself to get behind in my blogging.  So I am going to try to get two recipes in one week this time.  We'll see.

Anyway, tonight's fairly short blog is for what I consider the easiest and best crock pot roast I have ever fixed.  Now, this will only work for the person who is not home all day long.

Place one frozen roast in the crock pot.  Yep, right out of the freezer.
Pour one can of Campbell's Beef Broth over the roast.  Sprinkle one packet of Lipton Onion Soup Mix (your favorite recipe flavor) over the roast.

Cover and cook on low for 8-9 hours.  My crock pot is the programmable type, where it switches to Warm after the timer is finished.  That may have contributed to the greatness of the flavor, but this was the best roast I have ever fixed!  Since we are trying to reduce carbs along with calories, I did not add any veggies.  However, you could just pile them on at the beginning and they will probably be good and mushy after 9 hours.

The finished product photo does not convey the yummy smell in my kitchen when I got home, but trust me, this was falling off the bone goodness.

What type of roast was used:  In these photos, I used a chuck roast.  At a different time, I used a sirloin tip roast.  We get our beef from my dad, so whatever cuts the butcher gives us, that is what we work with.  Good ol' Tennessee farm raised beef!
 

Grilled Vegetable Skewers

For several weeks now I have been remiss in my blogging duties.  Big T and I have initiated a “lifestyle change” that involves regular exercise and carefully monitoring our eating habits, so I have yet to fully adjust to a different schedule that involves a side trip to the gym after work.   Therefore, some items have fallen behind, like laundry and blogging.  However, I want to share some of my recipes that I have been putting into our rotation for anyone else that might want to try them, so the first one is for grilled vegetables using a marinade I found online recently.   Unfortunately, I do not remember which website I found it on to give them credit. I do, however, want to give a shout out for myfitnesspal.com.  It takes some discipline, but I really like this website and they have a mobile app to make logging on the go very easy!  So back to our regularly scheduled food.

We prefer to use squash, zucchini, mushrooms, onions, and cherry tomatoes for our grilled vegetable skewers. 

  

 I don’t like tomatoes but I add them for my guests and they are pretty.  You can also add peppers.  I don’t like them either.  These pics won’t show onions because we chose to grill them whole.  I’ll post that recipe later.

Chop the squash, onions, and zucchini into big chunks and put them in a ziploc bag with the tomatoes and mushrooms. Next gather these ingredients and make the marinade.

Vegetable Marinade

½ c. olive oil

½ c. lime juice

¼ c. water

¼ c. dijon mustard

2 T. real maple syrup

2 T. minced garlic

2 t. dried basil

½ t. salt

½ t. freshly ground pepper

If you add everything in order and DON’T mix it until the very end, it looks like this:

 

Love it when science and cooking mix. Or don’t mix.

Anyway,mix well and pour it over the vegetables. 

 

Moosh all of the air out of the bag and zip it closed.  Then roll the bag around and make sure all of the veggies are coated.

 

Throw the bag(s) in the fridge for 2 hours.  Go watch a favorite movie.  Then put the veggies on skewers.  I prefer metal, but if you use wooden ones, make sure they have been soaked for at least 30 minutes first.  Then place them on the grill on medium heat.

 

 Flip them after about 3 minutes or so.  Then flip them onto the plate.  Your side dish is ready; dig in! 

A couple of tips:

The marinade can be made up to 7 days in advance of use.  I usually store mine in a mason jar.

Chop your veggies the night before to save time on grill day.