The other day I wanted soup again. Last week I made Kiersten's Creamy Wild Rice & Mushroom Soup and it was sooo good! You need to make it. But this time I didn't have all of the ingredients so I set off to my pantry to see what I did have. So hence the name pantry soup! Clean out the pantry and see what veggies I had in my fridge. I used fresh tomatoes because I didn't have canned diced tomatoes.

And…I found potato flakes from Idahoan Foods in my pantry. When I went to Idaho last year, we visited the Idahoan Foods processing plant and saw that REAL potatoes goes into those potato flakes. And I swear I remember someone talking about thickening soups with it. Sooo I wanted to try it! And it came out beautifully…and I never told Curtis. Hehe

Get all of your veggies chopped up, your mise en place. It takes a little bit to chop everything up but so worth it to do it all ahead of time and I sort it out by the groupings/orderings I add it into the pot.

In my French oven, I heated the olive oil and then cooked the onions, celery and carrots for about 8 minutes.

Then I dropped in the tomatoes and garlic – this picture above is after cooking those down and then adding the parsley, oregano and beans.

I love pasta with just butter, pepper and parmesan cheese. I can eat it all day. So I thought I'd mix this up for the pasta that goes into the soup!

And this soup is so good as leftovers!

I had this for dinner with grilled caesar salad and bread…perfect! I love the complexity of flavor the potato flakes added to the soup. So good and when I make this again, I'll probably sub out different veggies for what I have in my pantry! Hope this inspires you to use what you have in your pantry!

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Pantry Vegetable and Pasta Soup

Prep Time 25 minutes minutes

Cook Time 40 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 5 minutes minutes

Servings 4 -6 servings

Ingredients

• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 3 large carrots diced
• 2 celery stalks diced
• 1 medium onion diced
• 3 garlic cloves minced
• 2 medium tomatoes diced
• salt & pepper
• 1 15- ounce can cannellini beans rinsed and drained
• 3 Tablespoons fresh Italian parsley chopped
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 15- ounce cans low sodium chicken or vegetable broth or 4 cups
• 2 1/2 Tablespoons Idahoan Buttery Homestyle Mashed Potatoes potato flakes, optional
• 8 ounces seashell pasta
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons salted butter
• 2 Tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese and additional for soup garnish

Instructions

• Heat olive oil in your French oven or large stock pot on medium high heat for 2 minutes. Add carrots, celery, onions, salt and pepper and cook until softened, about 5 to 8 minutes. Add garlic and tomatoes and cook until tomatoes are broken down, about 5 to 8 minutes.
• Add beans, 1 Tablespoon parsley and the oregano. Mix thoroughly with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon and then add chicken broth. Mix again and increase heat to high. Bring to boil and then add potato flakes (optional). Reduce heat and bring to a simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes.
• While the soup is simmer, boil pasta but set the timer to about 2 minutes less than the instructions on the package. Drain pasta once it's done cooking and then add butter, pepper and parmesan cheese.
• Serve soup with pasta and top with remaining pasta and parmesan cheese.

The post Pantry Vegetable and Pasta Soup appeared first on The Little Kitchen.

As you can see, it's been way too long since I have posted! I have been really, really busy, so busy that sometimes we eat dinner at 9:30 at night! Even though I'm so busy, I really, really try to make dinner most nights but it's been getting harder and harder lately. Our 14 or 15 year old kitty, Roswell, recently passed away and I was shell-shocked. I wrote about it on my other blog, www.whateverjulie.com, and was so humbled by the support I received there as well as on facebook and twitter. We were expecting it but even though we were expecting it, it still hurt terribly. If you're a petlover and have experienced a loss of your pet, you know what I mean.

I'm also trying to balance training for the Susan G. Komen Tampa 3-Day for the Cure®, work and my volunteering for Komen Central Florida. It's been tough but completely worth it. Training has helped to focus on a goal throughout all that's happened. You can follow my training on www.whateverjulie.com and if you're so inclined to donate :), please submit a donation online here.

So I was talking about getting dinners on the table! This is a really, really easy dinner that you can get on the table in under 50 minutes (I think). This has got to be one of my husband's favorite dinners right now. We had it for dinner tonight and he paid me the hugest complement…he said, “if I had a restaurant, this would be on the menu.” Awww, sometimes he really knows how to make a girl blush.

The black beans recipe was inspired by a recipe I found on Cooks.com. I use yellow rice from bag, my favorite brand right now is Vigo and I don't follow the instructions exactly.

Join Aggie’s Kitchen and Real Mom Kitchen and share a family favorite Winter Comfort Food recipe for the Bush’s Beans Recipe Exchange!

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Black Beans and Rice con Pollo

Ingredients

Rice

• 10 oz. bag of Vigo saffron yellow rice
• 2 1/4 to 2/12 cups of water
• 2 Tbsp olive oil

Beans

• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium onion roughly chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic minced
• 2 14.5 oz cans of Bush's black beans, undrained
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 bay leaf

Chicken

• 2 cloves of garlic minced
• 1/2 medium or 1 small onion roughly chopped, chopped larger than the onion for the black beans
• 1 to 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into cutlets
• salt and pepper
• 2-3 tsp olive oil

Instructions

• First, chop onions and garlic. Separate out onto two different plates.
• Start water boiling for the rice. Boil 2 cups of water. Once boiling, add rice and follow instructions on the bag. As you're cooking beans and chicken, check the rice and mix as needed as well as add more water along the way...a couple of times. I add 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup depending on how much I need. If I add all of the water the bag calls for, it seems to come out too mushy for me.
• Heat 1 Tbsp of olive oil at medium high heat. Add chopped onion and garlic to large sauce pan or dutch oven. Cook until translucent (don't burn the garlic) for about 5 minutes.
• Lower to medium heat and drop in 1 can of undrained black beans along with bay leaf and 1/2 tsp of cumin. Cook for 5-7 minutes. Use a potato masher to mash the beans.
• While the beans are cooking, prepare the chicken and add salt and pepper to taste as well as drizzle olive oil over chicken.
• Heat a seasoned cast iron skillet (or non-stick skillet, be sure to add a little olive oil and heat for only 1-2 minutes) on medium to medium high heat (for the chicken) for about 3-4 minutes.
• Add the 2nd can of beans and heat on low for about 10 minutes.
• Add chicken to cast iron skillet and cook for about 4 minutes on each side on medium heat.
• When the chicken is about ready to come off the skillet, add the raw onions and garlic chopped for the chicken. Using tongs, move the chicken to one side of the skillet and mix the onions around to get cooked. Be sure not to burn the garlic.
• Remove chicken, onions and garlic after about 2 minutes and allow chicken to rest for at least 5 minutes.

Notes

Inspired by a Cooks.com recipe for Easy Black Beans and Yellow Rice.

I hope you enjoy the dish like my husband did! By the way, he likes to add diced tomatoes and a little bit of hot habanero cheddar cheese on top of the black beans and rice.

I did want to mention one other thing, a fellow blogger, Erika of the Ivory Hut, recently lost her house to a fire and almost lost a family member as well. Her son is a hero, carrying his grandmother out of the house just in time. I don't know Erika personally and have visited her blog several times but I was moved to donate when I read the posts on twitter about her ordeal. In a little over a week, her friends and fellow bloggers have raised over $10,000! While insurance will cover a lot of her losses, it will not cover the immediate expenses, for example, Erika was the only in her household wearing shoes when they escaped from her burning house. Insurance will not replace her lost wages or pictures on hard drives. Read her firsthand account of what happened and visit the site set up by Maggy and Alice to read more updates as well as donate. Erika's resolve and bright positivity has motivated so many and inspired me. I hope you'll visit the blogs to read on.

The post Black Beans and Rice con Pollo appeared first on The Little Kitchen.

I have made the move over to WordPress from RapidWeaver. I had to manually copy and paste the old posts over and the comments will be moved over soon as well. I like it much better, WordPress is free and touts a 5 minute install process and literally is. Just in case you're wondering, it is not hosted on WordPress.com but hosted through KismetWebHost. I hope you like the new site. Let me know in the comments what you would like to see on the site and if you have any suggestions for the new site as far as recipes and layout. I hope it's easier to navigate and find things. Thank you very much and I'm excited about using WordPress!

Before we get to the recipe, I wanted to tell you about a giveaway from one of my favorite bloggers, Susan. She is giving away two KitchenAid mixers, one to a winner and one to their friend. So if you want to try to win a KitchenAid mixer, go on over to She's Becoming DoughMessTic and enter the giveaway and say I sent you! You have to leave a comment and please say I sent you, use my twitter username @juliebakes. You must follow her on facebook or twitter to win. Be sure to read her instructions carefully, if your name is drawn, she will check the entry out. We can win a pair of KitchenAid mixers together! Thanks!

Okay, now the recipe. I love this recipe because it's tasty and quick! The herbs and tomatoes and the saltiness of the parm cheese make it very rich even though it's very easy to make. I have made it a bunch of times and I like it to have more of a broth than the original instructions call for. It goes really well with salad and bread for a lighter dinner and comforting enough to have when it's cold.

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Pasta Fazul

Ingredients

• 4 Tbsp olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic minced
• 1 onion chopped
• 1 carrot finely chopped
• 2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley or 1 tablespoon dried parsley
• 2 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
• 1/2 to 1 cup of water
• 1 14.5 ounce can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• 8 oz. macaroni
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

• In a large skillet, saute garlic, onion, carrot, parsley, basil and oregano in olive oil until onions are tender.
• Add the tomatoes plus juices and the salt and pepper to taste. Cover and stir frequently, simmering for 10 minutes or until vegetables are tender. After simmering for a couple of minutes, I usually add 1/2 to 1/3 cup of water.
• Add the cannellini beans and cover. Simmer for 20 minutes.
• During any of the above steps, cook macaroni according to package directions, drain and toss with butter and Parmesan cheese. Add to tomato and cannellini beans. Serve immediately with additional Parmesan cheese, if desired.

Notes

Modified from allrecipes.com

The post Pasta Fazul appeared first on The Little Kitchen.