Vegetable Soup & Wanna-Be Monte Cristo

While I was doing my weekly meal plan earlier, I was trying to come up with what we would have for dinner tonight. (I knew what was planned for the rest of the week already.) I looked through cookbooks and recipes and nothing jumped out at me. I remembered that I had a ton of vegetables that needed to be used up and I thought, “Hmm…how about soup?” And that’s what we had. 🙂

I’ll admit it – I am pretty much a recipe cook. I usually have a recipe that I go from, so I winged this. My measurements are approximate!

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp. butter
• 1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 3 medium carrots diced
• 1/2 large red onion roughly chopped
• 2 stalks celery chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic minced
• 2 medium potatoes cubed
• 1 zucchini cut into half-moons
• 1 14.5 oz can tomato sauce
• 1 14.5 oz can petite diced tomatoes
• 2 or so cups of chicken stock
• salt
• pepper
• 1 tbsp. tomato paste
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp. dried basil
• pinch thyme
• 1/2 tbsp. sugar
• 1 cup of frozen corn
• 1 cup frozen peas
• Parmesan cheese

Directions:

Heat a large dutch oven over medium heat. Add the olive oil and butter until butter melts. Add carrot, onion, celery, and potatoes. Saute for about 5 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Add garlic and zucchini and cook until fragrant. Add the tomato paste, oregano, basil, and thyme and stir to coat the vegetables.

Add the tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, and chicken stock. Cover and bring to a slow boil. Let cook for about 17 minutes. I added about 1/2 cup of water here – it was a little too thick for me.

Remove lid and add corn and peas. This is where I added sugar – it was too acidic. Let cook for about another 15 minutes.

As with any soup, the longer it cooks, the better it will be. Garnish with grated parmesan cheese.

We had this with Wanna-Be Monte Cristo’s.

Wanna-Be Monte Cristo’s

Ingredients:

• 2 sandwiches
• 1 tbsp. butter
• 4 slices of your favorite bread
• 2 slices of extra sharp cheddar cheese
• Deli ham (or turkey or both!)
• 2 slices Muenster cheese
• Jalapeno Pepper Jelly
• Melt the butter over medium heat in a non-stick skillet.

Directions:

Assemble the sandwiches:

On one side of the bread slather pepper jelly. Then a slice of one type of cheese, two pieces of the deli ham, and the other type of cheese. Lay the second slice of bread on a sandwich.

Put into a hot skillet and cook as you would a grilled cheese sandwich. We like our sandwiches pretty crispy. About 3-4 minutes per side.

Serve hot!