Cream Cheese and Herb Soup

Dear readers, I am sharing with you right now my secret weapon--the dish I make when I want to give myself some gratification at the end of a long day, and especially when I want to wow my boyfriend or anyone else cooking dinner. If I had to pick one dish I've learned to cook as my absolute favorite, it may just be cream cheese and herb soup, which I found in The Cook's Library Vegetarian. (Does it surprise readers that my favorite dish doesn't contain chocolate? It does me.)

First and foremost, do not cheat and used a premade vegetable broth. This cookbook offers you an extremely awesome vegetable bullion--make that before you make the soup. You'll savor every drop of effort with each bite of this amazing, tasteful soup. Another tip: the recipe recommends whisking the cream cheese after blending the soup in a food processor. If the whisking isn't working, don't feel guilty about combing the cream cheese with the rest of the soup in a food processor. This recipe makes four servings; consider how minimal that really is. With all the work involved in making this soup, you may want to increase portions of each ingredient so you'll be able to enjoy leftovers (and this does reheat well, trust me). I recommend serving it with fresh vegetables and saltines, as pictured above.

I love cooking this as a precursor to a romantic entree for dinners with my boyfriend, but I also prepare it for myself often when I crave fine cooking, because this is excellent cuisine. Imagine hearty, warmed milk and cornstarch, with the tang of cream cheese, shrouded perfectly in an array of parsley, thyme, basil, and oregano, topped with zesty chives. Finely flavorful, this soup belongs in a five-star restaurant--or in front of your most hard-to-impress dinner guests.

Manicotti in Eggplant Sauce

I don't know about you, but a three-day weekend to me means two things: catching up on homework, and finally being able to cook an amazing dinner this week!

Graduate school has resumed for me, and with it, of course, my graduate assistantship duties, in addition to my bartending job. In short? I'm busy. Too busy too cook a huge meal every night, or even eat one, for that matter. But as tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and university offices are closed, and today is Sunday, and the bar is closed, I can finally take a breath and enjoy some home cooking!

A dish that has been on my mind a lot lately is eggplant manicotti; unfortunately, I haven't had the time, until tonight, to make it again. I first made eggplant manicotti several months ago and thought it was so scrumptious, as did my boyfriend. It's very filling and hearty. Prefaced with a crisp salad, this is a perfect romantic dinner for a cold night in! I used this recipe from AllRecipes, with only a few minor adjustments. My meat-eating boyfriend thought the original recipe was too "bland," so we upped the amount of thyme and added garlic powder, black pepper, basil, and parsley. I also found that 10 ounces of spinach was quite a bit for just six manicotti shells, so we were able to make more servings out of this.

I think everybody remembers the first time they try an outstanding dish. I remember the first time I ever had manicotti; I was in high school, and my sister came to visit and made a vegetarian-friendly manicotti for dinner. Manicotti is one of those dishes, like vegetarian lasagna, that is just so yummy that you have a hard time believing it would be easy or uncomplicated to make yourself. Don't be fooled by the lengthy ingredient list; this recipe is extremely easy to make. The only thing tricky is trying not to tear the manicotti shells during the stuffing step, especially if you overcook them. Otherwise, all the preparation consists of are the same basic steps you follow in hundreds of other vegetarian recipes. Nothing fancy, just a remarkably delicious outcome.

Manicotti is loved by vegans and meat-eaters, and no "faux meats" are needed to spice this dish up. In fact, I actually think the addition of soy beef would unnecessarily, and unwantedly, distract from the overall "herb and cheese" taste of this eggplant- and spinach-based pasta meal. Warm, cheesy, healthy, and a mealtime favorite, eggplant manicotti is a flawless and easy culinary piece that should grace every vegetarian and meat-eater's dinner table.

Herb-Glazed Carrots

Ever complete a new cooking project and think, "Why haven't I been doing things this way for years?"

"Herbed-Glazed Carrots" is actually a small after-note under "Brown Sugar-Glazed Carrots" in Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book: Celebrating the Promise, Limited Edition, a recipe that has you stir brown sugar and butter with boiled baby carrots. The herb glaze option involves coating cooked carrots with butter, honey, and thyme. Thinking this might be somewhat bland, I added herbs de provence--but I must say, Better Homes and Gardens knew what they were talking about. The herbs de provence actually tasted unnecessary. (And for me to say seasoning was unnecessary is huge; I'm known for overusing my spice rack.) Thyme and honey are such excellent accents to softened, cooked carrots, and it's a scrumptious side for any winter meal, especially one with soup, potatoes, or other home-cooked delights.

After eating herb-glazed carrots two dinners in a row, though, I had to wonder, why did I ever serve myself carrots at dinnertime prepared any other way? Thyme-sprinkled, honey-glazed, buttered carrots are too yummy to modify. Eating these carrots reminded me of the home-cooked meals I enjoyed as a kid growing up in Robards, Ky., where all the veggies were grown by my father and cooked to perfection by my mother. There's something to be said about warm, hearty food like cooked carrots on the dinner table--and delightful culinary twists like thyme and honey to make that home-cooked experience even more enjoyable.

Baker's Potatoes

Forget the butter, the sour cream, the soy bacon, the chives...forget all of that. Here is a magnificent baked potato recipe you will never have to embellish.

The recipe "Baker's Potatoes" is featured in one of my all-time favorite cookbooks, Bon Appetit, Y'all: Recipes and Stories from Three Generations of Southern Cooking, by the very talented Virginia Willis. As evident through all my entries, I never duplicate recipes in this blog, especially ones from copyrighted books, so I can only tell you about the recipe. In this French-influenced dish, peeled potatoes are sliced thinly--though not all the way down, not enough to sever the slices from one another--and oven-baked in sliced onions, herbs, garlic, and vegetable broth. The recipe actually calls for chicken broth, but I used a carton of Imagine Foods vegetable stock. It's the best thing besides actually making a bullion from scratch (which, if you would like to do, the best recipe for veggie bullion I have ever seen is in Cook's Library Vegetarian).

When I first saw the broth-and-onion mixture in the picture in the book, I was skeptical about how much I'd enjoy eating baked potatoes surrounded by juice-covered onion slices. However, after a couple of bites, the mix was so delicious that I took my plate back to the dish and started scooping out more broth onto the potatoes. Additionally, it's important to note that the slices in the potatoes allow for them to absorb all of the herbs and broth while soaking, so every bite is full of flavor. I didn't change a thing in the recipe, except that I did add some multicolored peppercorn and spicy garlic for seasoning.

I made these for dinner last night, and both Ty and I were so surprised at how much we loved them. The generous forty-five minutes in the oven still prevents the potatoes from becoming too soft or overcooked. We both had seconds...and thirds...and then leftovers today! Forget the baked potatoes you have previously eaten--these delicious thyme-and-broth soaked potatoes are delightfully seasoned side dishes that will perfectly complement any dinner and thrill your taste buds.