Recipes I love

For the last 6 days the wife and I have been living on this ranch that we are working on and we have learned a lot. But some of the best learning has been in the kitchen, and I wanted to share our knowledge we have gained.

There are a few recipes that I love. For me it is more than just the taste good factor. I look at prep time, size of the meal produced, calorie and protein value, as well as the ingredients in the recipe and how long they can be stored for. When all this is factored in, my 2 favorite are both soups.

One is a Pasta Fagioli variant and the other I call taco bean soup. I will post these recipes soon, but for now I wanted to give you the recipe for a new creation that was spawned by the hunger and determination of the wife and myself in our kitchen last night.

Recipe-

-Saute one half to three quarters cup onion in olive oil until onion is translucent. Amount of oil will be determined by amount of onion you use.
-Add all of the following:

• 32oz chicken broth or 4 cups water and 4 bullion cubes.
• Half can or 7oz diced tomatoes.
• 1 Cup beans, I used Great Northern (white) but black would work great too.
• Pinch of red pepper, or black if you don't like the red.
• 2 teaspoons Mediterranean blend spice. Look below if you don't have this.

Bring this to a boil. Once boiling add 1 cup pasta, I like macaroni, but use whatever you prefer. Cook till Al Dente (pasta is done).

Now if you don't have Mediterranean blend spice, you can make your own or find something similar.


Lets dissect the things in this blend so you can make your own.

• Salt
  
• Dehydrated Garlic -Or you can use garlic powder just the same
• Dehydrated onion -Onion powder is also something that can be found at Wal Mart
• Spices -This is basil, rosemary, and oregano
• Black pepper
  
• Paprika
  
• Red Pepper
• Dehydrated tomatoes -Easy
  
• Dehydrated bell pepper - Grind these up, just like the tomato. Easy
  
• Soy Bean oil -If you truly must include this, you're on your own. For me, I would skip it.

I'm sure there are a million different spice blends that are almost identical to this, just experiment!