Alternate stuffing recipe

My mom used bread stuffing in our holiday turkeys and it wasn't until I married my husband that I was introduced to Wild Rice Stuffing.  Since our marriage I have used this instead of the bread stuffing that most of us are familiar with.  I got this recipe from my mother-in-law.  I hope that you might try it sometime.  It also makes a great side dish for other meals.

WILD RICE DRESSING

1 pkg. Wild Rice-a-Roni.

1 can water chestnuts (chopped)

1 small can mushrooms (chopped)

1 onion (chopped)

1 stalk celery (chopped)

1 chicken bouillon cube dissolved in the water. (This year we used chicken stock instead of the water called for.  In this case you don't need the bouillon cube.)

Saute the vegetables in a little butter (since this is supposed to be a healthy food blog, I suppose you could substitute the butter for a healthy oil, but we haven't tried that.)  Add the Rice-a-Roni mix and use 1/4 cup less liquid than called for.  You can also cook up the giblets ahead of time and chop them up and add too, if you'd like. Add the spice mix included in the Rice-a-Roni pkg. and simmer until the liquid is mostly absorbed.  It is then ready to put into the turkey, or used as a side dish. 

I know that Rice-a-Roni uses some ingredients in their spice mix, (Like MSG) that some people try to avoid.  With this in mind I think that any wild rice medley could be used and your own spices added.  This is a great recipe and with some tweaking could be even better, health-wise.  It is also great for folks who have to avoid bread because of the gluten.

Let me know if you try this and what changes, if any, you make.

Happy Eating!

Long time no blog!

Hi fans of Pink Smoothie Girls.

It's been many months since my last post.  We've had some illness issues with a member of our little group and things have slowed down.  But I do want to share a great recipe that I made today.  It makes 9 quarts and so I froze some.

Pasta E Fagioli

For those who are fans of Olive Garden, I've found a knock off recipe for their Past E Fagioli soup.  One of the great things is that it is one of their less fat and calorie laden menu items.  Another great thing is that I'm able to adjust the spices to our tastes.  Here is the recipe.  I hope you try it and enjoy it as much as we did.

Pasta E Fagioli

INGREDIENTS

3 tsp. oil

2 lbs. ground beef

12 oz. onion, chopped

14 oz. carrots, slivered

14 oz. celery, diced

48 oz. tomatoes, canned, diced

2 c. cooked red kidney beans

2 c. cooked white kidney beans

88 oz. beef stock

3 tsp. oregano

2 1/2 tsp. pepper

5 tsp. parsley, (fresh chopped)

1 1/2 tsp. Tabasco sauce

48 oz. spaghetti sauce

8 oz. dry shell pasta, or other pasta

PREPARATION:

Saute beef in oil in large (10-qt.) pot until beef starts to brown.  Add onions, carrots, celery and tomatoes and simmer for about 10 minutes.  Drain and rinse beans and add to the pot.  Also add beef stock, oregano, pepper, Tabasco, spaghetti sauce, and noodles.  Add chopped parsley.  Simmer until celery and carrots are tender, about 45 minutes.

This recipe may be divided for smaller families needs.

Nutrition:

per cup 219 calories, 9g fat, 24 g carbohydrates, 10g protein.

This recipe is from CDKitchen http://www.cdkitchen.com/

We are not "hot" lovers in our house, so I made some adjustments in the recipe.  A few turns of the pepper mill, not 2 1/2 tsp of pepper and NO Tabasco sauce.  I also used a quart plus one pint of our home canned spaghetti sauce.  I also didn't make a big deal of the "sliced, slivered, chopped" directions for the carrots onions and celery. I used my food processor blade and chopped everything the same.  I did them separately, as all 3 wouldn't fit in the bowl of the processor.  It made short work of that tedious part of the preparation. I also used dried parsley, not fresh.

Please give feedback and tell me if you like this recipe.