Vegetarian Chicken Cheese Soup

As I am in my early days of actually enjoying cooking, I just discovered how wonderful Crockpots are! After making amazing vegetarian chili, I searched around for some more good crock recipes. Since cheese is one of my major food groups, this vegetable cheese soup recipe sounded delish, but changes improvements were necessary. So two weekends ago (posting on time during the holidays is just impossible), my household hunkered down  to make some cheese soup and record some songs.

As an Irish gal, I scoffed at the recipe calling for only a cup of potatoes, and cut up 3 medium sized spuds. It's difficult to have too much onion, so I included a 1 large onion (chopped). I then chopped up the cup of carrots and gathered the ingredients together for crockpot time!

It was then time to combine the 2 cans of vegetable broth, 1 can of creamed corn, potatoes, carrots, onions, 1 tsp celery seed, and a little bit of pepper. After careful consideration (see: I had a "duh!" momement), I added two cloves of minced garlic to the mix. 

The original recipe instructs us to cook this mixture on low for 8 hours, however I majorly overslept had a very busy morning, so I turned it up to high for 4.5 hours, after which time I added a 15oz jar of processed cheese sauce and about a cup of shredded cheddar.

My love of fake meat is unwavering and the meat-eating men in my life tend to prefer when I make things that include this delicious faux-animal carcass, so it only made sense to add fake chicken strips to the mix, after letting the cheese-saturated soup cook for about 45 minutes. Next time I make this, I'll probably fry the chicken strips first, to give them a little bit of crispyness. Also at this time, I was feeling that the soup looked quite runny, so I ended up adding about a cup of flour, which did help slightly. If you have any thoughts on how to not make it so watery, please let me know!

After letting all of that cook for a final hour, it was time to enjoy! So me and three boys put the music aside, grabbed a beer and turned on America's Funniest Home Videos on Netflix (trust me, it's funnier than you remember). They gave me RAVE reviews and I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it myself. I will definitely be making this again. See a summary of the ingredients below, and make this soul-warming dish ASAP!

2 cans vegetable broth

3 medium sized potatoes

About 1 cup chopped carrots

1 onion, chopped

1 can creamed corn

1 tsp celery seed

2 cloves garlic (minced)

Pepper - as much as you desire (I tend to use less pepper than others)

1 jar processed cheese (can be found in the chip aisle)

1 cup shredded cheddar (or whatever cheese you prefer)

1 package fake chicken strips (I used chicken-less strips from Trader Joe's but I also love Morning Star Farm's fake chicken strips)

If you have any suggestions on how to make this recipe better for the next time around, please leave a comment!

Hey Girl,

My first really big celebrity crush was Justin Timberlake. I mean, he's got it all: looks, dance moves, the voice, sense of humor... but the past few years I've been haunted by another movie star dream boat: RYAN GOSLING. Now I know that it's very trendy to like him right now, but I've been jonesing for him for years. SO, this blog offers me the perfect opportunity to make my own Hey Girl series. This is how Ryan Gossling would talk in my ideal world:

Gnocchi, spinach and pine nuts: Easy and AWESOME

A friend of mine recently told me about this recipe that I immediately wanted to try. I love a well-done Gnocchi dish, but I also hate complicated recipes, so this one was perfect for me. I fed it to my (male) roommate and boyfriend and they both told me it was the best thing I’ve ever made, and they’ve tried my pierogi pizza (stay tuned…).

I promise to start including pictures, but for now, here are the deets:

Prep/cook time: about 15 minutes

Serves: 2 

1 16 oz pkg gnocchi
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp pine nuts
2 minced garlic cloves (or if you date someone like my boyfriend, way more)
1 10 oz pkg spinach (or however little/much you’d like, but more is better because it really melts down)
salt and pepper to season
1/4 c (or more if you’re me) shredded Parm cheese (Motz would probably work well here too)

cook the gnocchi til it floats, drain and set aside
throw butter, garlic and pine nuts in a skillet/wok, cook about 3 to 4 minutes over medium heat until the nuts are lightly browned, add gnocchi and spinach about 1-2 minutes, then add salt and pepper and cheese. 

gnocchi should brown a little on the outside and the cheese should melt and spinach should wilt.

Now, I doubled this recipe because there were three of us eating. It still turned out good, but because of the amount of gnocchi, it was hard to put in all the spinach, as the wok was just too full. If I ever double the ingredients again, I’ll probably cook the first half separately, as to make sure everything gets coated well and I get in my desired amount of spinach.

To Start Off

I have a lot of quirks and experiences that would make for a worthy blog, however I had the idea to start this one because I am finally starting to enjoy cooking and creating my own clothes. Call me narcissistic, but I think it would be fun to share my successes!

But fortunately for you (or maybe not), I know my big mouth won’t stop at what I cooked for dinner last night. I have traveled many places around the world, have been in two different thankless jobs for the past three years and, until recently, have led a very Sex and City-esque life in Chicago. I have a feelings this blog will be filled with food, fashion, opinions and stories, which doesn’t sound half bad.