Tortellini Soup

This Tortellini Soup, from the Pioneer Women, has become a family favourite on our winter menu.  It is a quick and easy soup to throw together and has come in handy on our busy nights and bread making days when the oven is too full of bread to cook in. This paired with a freshly baked loaf of sour dough is divine. 

Tortellini Soup

8 cups of vegetable or chicken stock.

6 ounces (or a little can ) of tomato paste

1 bag of frozen mixed vegetables

10 ounces fresh cheese tortellini 

1/2 cup heavy cream

Salt and Pepper to taste

In a medium pot over medium high heat, bring the broth to a gentle boil.  Stir in tomato paste.  Add the frozen vegetables and return to a gentle boil.  Add the tortellini and cook for 3-5 minutes.  Add heavy cream and cook for 2 minutes.  Taste and adjust flavour with salt and pepper.  

You can garnish with fresh parsley and basil if you have them on hand. 

Garlic Cheese Bread

This delicious garlic cheesy bread is an easy side that goes perfectly with spaghetti,  soup or just dipped in your favourite marinara sauce for an appetizer.   

1 loaf of french bread (we use a loaf of our homemade sourdough)

1/4 cup of Mayonnaise

1 TBSP sour cream

1/4 cup softened butter (try not to have it melted)

2 cloves of garlic

4 oz shredded mozzarella cheese

8 oz shredded cheddar cheese

* Original recipe calls for 1/4 - 1/2 cup green onion *

1.  Slice your bread and lay out on a parchment lined cookie sheet. 

2.  Combine Mayo, sour cream, butter, and garlic together.  Add in your cheeses.  

3.  Spread your mixture onto the bread. 

4.  Preheat your broiler on high.

5.  Place under the broiler for 3-5 minutes (set a timer and watch carefully)

6.  Enjoy!!!  

The original recipe can be found here at simply recipes 

Valentine's Day Charcuterie Board

Charcuterie boards have become very popular so this year  I decided to jump on the bandwagon and create a beautiful Valentine's Day "Chocuterie" board for teacher appreciation week at our kids schools. 

This chocolate charcuterie board was very easy to create as it mostly items that have been purchased and then dipped in chocolate. 

My favourite chocolate to use when dipping is semi-sweet chocolate chips and for white chocolate I use vanilla almond bark (which I buy in the states for all my Canadian friends).

Here are all the ingredients I decided to add to my board.  The candy hearts,  cinnamon hearts, jelly beans, conversation hearts, chocolate hearts, Kisses, and heart gummies went on the board as is and were used for filler.  I did pick up a few pretzels and Oreos that were dipped in pink chocolate at the bulk bark. 

I had two double boilers going.  One with white chocolate and one with semi sweet chocolate and we just started dipping the other things like Oreos, chocolate and strawberry wafers, pretzel rods and strawberries into the chocolate and then added some Valentine's sprinkles (purchased at Michaels) or candy hearts to our creations.

For these pretzel treats you simple place a kiss onto a pretzel and let them bake in a 200 oven for about 5 minutes or until the chocolate is soft.  Then you press in coloured M&Ms and let them cool.  These are so delicious and addictive due to the sweet and salty. 

We also did up our famous white chocolate popcorn but instead of using the white almond bark we purchased some pink melting chocolate.

Now to assemble the board!  I purchased a 2 pack of these Valentine's trays at the dollar store.  We started by placing the cinnamon candy hearts and the conversation hearts in Valentine's cupcake liners in two of the corners.  Then we placed the pretzel rods on side ways to break up the board.  After that it was a just adding things (the kids where helping) until the board was complete and everything was on there.  The popcorn didn't make it on, unfortunately, but the kids didn't mind as they bagged it up and took it in their lunches and to share with their friends. 

Double Chocolate Cookies

Oh these cookies are packed full of chocolatey goodness.  They are crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, almost like a brownie.

I love making these cookies for special holidays using different colour M&M's to match the theme.   For Valentine's Day I used pink and red M&Ms and for Saint Patrick's Day it was green ones that I picked out of a bag of Christmas coloured ones I got on clearance after Christmas. 

Double Chocolate Cookies

1 cup butter

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

2tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

2/3 cup cocoa

3/4 tsp soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 cups of chocolate chips ( I use 1 cup of white chocolate chips in the batter, 1/2 of semi sweet in the batter and 1/2 cup of M&Ms on the tops of the cookies for decoration). 

Cream together the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until fluffy.  

Sift together flour, cocoa, soda and salt. 

Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until combined. 

Using a cookie scoop; scoop cookies onto a parchment lined pan and bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.  Half way through baking (around 5 minutes) I like to take the cookies and squish them down a little so they are more of a flat cookie.   When they are done baking take your M&M's and decorate the tops of the cookies with them.  Some times to give a little more colour I will add a few white chocolate chips to the tops of them as well. 

Let cool or enjoy them slightly warm with a big glass of cold milk! 

Stuffed Crust Pizza

Our family enjoys pizza night at least once a week in our house!   A lovely lady brought us the most delicious pizza as a blessing and we all loved it very much so I got her recipe and we have been loving it!  

My sweet Jaelyn decided the other night while making the pizza to stuff the crust with cheese strings!!!  It was so delicious and I knew I had to share this recipe with all you wonderful readers.  So here it is.  Our stuffed crust pizza. 

This recipe makes large 2 pizzas

In a kitchen aid mixer with the dough attachment: 

3 Tbsp Sugar

3 Tbsp oil

1 1/2 cup boiling water

1 1/2 cup cold water

Add

3 cups flour

1 Tbsp Instant yeast

1 tsp salt

Turn on kitchen aid to mix together

ADD 

3 -4 MORE cups of flour, 1 cup at a time, until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl and you have a nice elastic dough. You can knead on the counter for a bit to :) 

Now roll the dough out to fit your pan.  I made ours a little bigger then our pan so Jaelyn could put cheese strings around the outside of the dough and we folded the edges over them.  

Top your pizza right away and bake at 400 for 20 minutes.

*You can also top it and freeze it right away.  When ready to bake it preheat oven to 400 and bake from frozen for 20-30 minutes.