Soup & Salad

If you name your daughter "Apple" you might get a side eye from me, but I'm all for second chances. And a second chance is just what I needed to give actress Gwenyth Paltrow, who, as it turns out, wrote an awesome cookbook. Our friends Paul and Lindsay (who I'd comfortably label "foodies") gave us this book as a housewarming gift a couple weeks ago and I've been loving my kitchen life ever since.

Being married to a pastor I have ample opportunity to hone my culinary skills. Tonight we had a couple from church over for dinner and with the heat today, I decided to go simple: soup and salad. I've also been trying to health-up our (well, "my"- and John's be default) eating habits by reducing refined sugars and using more fresh, nutrient rich ingredients. Our eating habits weren't bad... but there's always room for improvement.

On the menu:

• Fresh baked (bought) bread with pesto inspired by the Simply in Season cookbook
• Slow Roasted Tomato Soup from Gwyneth's My Father's Daughter cookbook
• Mayo-less Tuna Salad with Arugula from skinnytaste.com
  
• Berry Crumble from My Father's Daughter

Pesto

I've always wanted to make my own pesto, but that much basil is pricey to buy in store. Luckily the basil plants in my garden are doing great and I've been searching for reasons to use it!

This is a basic recipe:

• 1 cup basil leaves
• 2 cloves garlic
  
• 3 tbs Parmesan (I use nutritional yeast)
• 1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• Combine and blend
  

Basil from my garden (1 cup)


I use nutritional yeast instead of Parmesan because I'm lactose intolerant. Nutritional yeast has a savory taste that rivals the best cheese and is full of B vitamins (3 tbs).




Love my Magic Bullet!


Delicious on a fresh baked loaf of bread.



Slow Roasted Tomato Soup

• This recipe is copyrighted but worth buying (or borrowing from the library) this cookbook!
  
  
  
  Slow Roasted Tomatoes. These take 4 hours at 250* so I left my oven on while I drove to pick up John from work; I worried the entire time. I left the doors unlocked in case the house burned down so our cat Jasper could escape. Like that would help.
  
  
  Soup! (My plating-without-spilling-on-the-edge skills need some practice)
  
  
  
  
  Inspired by blogger Mama Natural I made the switch this month from regular iodized salt to natural salt, which contains lots of good-for-you trace minerals. The salt has a more earthy taste than what I'm used to, but I am starting to prefer it.
  
  
  

Mayo-less Tuna Salad

• recipe found here (skinnytaste.com)
  
  Capers, arugula, and pasta oh my!
  
  
  

Berry Crumble

• Another copyrighted recipe (again- buy this cookbook!) but what I love about this recipe is that it only uses 1/3 cup brown sugar. The rest is all natural sweetness from the fruit. Awesome!
  
  I used strawberries (picked 'em myself when we went berry picking with our small group!), raspberries, and blackberries.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

The only problem I really had with this meal was that a certain someone kept napping in the middle of my kitchen rug and refusing to move out of my way. He also went a little nutso when I opened the tuna can for the salad. Good thing he's cute. ;)