Hi dietbetter family!!!
i just love writing to you guys ^_^ reading your comments and seeing your likes really brighten up my day. So today isn't anything very profound. I do have good news, I have written ponderously long posts in the past, that really should have been blogs...except at the time the blog option wasn't working. I have them saved on my iPad in my notes so I'm going to be posting a series of blogs that only some of you have seen.
Ok I have heard everyone is getting sick!! So I'm sharing my favorite soup recipe based on the Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana. I LOVE that soup. My version is still up there in salt, but full of vitamins, low carb, very good for you and sitting pretty at about 75 calories a cup. If you don't have high blood pressure, then full steam ahead YOU WONT REGRET IT!
Sasha's 10 Step Secret Zuppa Toscana
You'll need:
-A big motherloving pot
-maybe 45 minutes to an hour of your time? Gosh I wish more recipes would tell you this.
-olive oil cooking spray
-1 large sweet onion, yellow or red doesn't matter. Most use Vidalia I guess. Slice it in half straight from top to bottom, take each half and again cut in half straight from top of onion to bottom, then cut into pretty and reasonably thin, long slices of red onion. Think about how the cut red onions look at Subway--that's what you want.
-Optional: Frozen low fat turkey sausage links (like for breakfast). 120 calories for 3 links. I got mine at Costco I think.
-1 or 2 quarts of chicken broth. I'd get two just in case you end up using more ingredients than you thought. You want this to be soup, right?
-skim milk. 2 cups per each quart of chicken broth you end up using
-Kale!! Trimmed and rinsed. So you can google how to trim kale, it's pretty darn easy. Then tear it into maybe 2-3 square inch pieces. No need to waste time in accuracy on that. If you use pretrimmed kale, rocking, just make sure to remove stray pieces of stem--a surprising amount of stem seems to sneak in there and it is not tasty.
-salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, (optional powdered ginger)
1.Stir fry on medium heat thinly sliced (not chopped) onions in a pot with spray olive oil. Add salt and pepper and generous amounts of cayenne.
2. (Optional, add three links turkey sausage 120 calories and cook for 10 minutes with onion. Then remove sausage and thinly slice then put back into pot).
3.When the onions are translucent after oh, maybe 10 minutes (stirring every other minute or so--do NOT BURN, turn down the heat if necessary) add a little chicken broth (half cup or so) to deglaze the pot and get all that yummy flavor and bits from the onions and optional turkey sausage.
4.Then add in your trimmed and rinsed kale. Cook it down just a little, add some more, your pot should look a little more than half full of your fresh kale.
5. Stir in (optional powdered ginger), black pepper and cayenne to taste and toss with cooking spoon all ingredients so that the kale gets somewhat coated with all the flavor from onions and sausage.
6.Then just add a quart or two of chicken broth (add enough to make the soup about the consistency you want it, because guess what? Almost done).
7. Cover and bring to a boil, then bring down to simmer
8. Stir in skim milk maybe, 2 cups per quart of chicken broth.
9. Cover again and let it simmer for I don't know, 20 minutes? You want your kale to be soft. All done. Maybe add in a tsp or 2 coconut oil if you like your soup to linger on your lips a little.
10. ENJOY ENJOY ENJOY!!!! This is my healthy version of Olive Garden's zuppa toscana and you're looking at less than 75 calories a cup so you can eat as much as you want. And yet, it is SO filling. :) Hugs!