Southwest Chicken Soup (Instant Pot)

December 29, 2019 Amanda Plott

This Southwest Chicken Soup is based on one that I often get at fairly well known chain restaurant. It’s a broth-based soup that’s light and yet loaded with tons of southwest flavors. Instead of the usual pinto or black beans, chickpeas are used instead!

Bring as we’re at the tail end of the Holiday season, and there’s still a lot going on, I decided to once again make this soup in the pressure cooker. Why? It saves me time and energy. So, I kept this soup pretty simple and made all at one time and in one pot. Toss it in, cook it, and enjoy…

Roasted Red Bell Pepper & Tomato Soup

November 22, 2019 Amanda Plott

During the colder end of Fall and on into Winter months, I like to stick to comfort food classics. And there isn’t much that’s more of a comfort food or a classic than a nice warm bowl of homemade tomato soup. I’ve made a lot of tomato soup in my past, and for this Roasted Red Bell Pepper & Tomato Soup I used one of my favorite recipes and changed it up just a bit.

With at least one person in my house trying to avoid onions, I decided today to swap the onion in my original recipe for some red bell pepper. The end result was this delicious, hearty, Roasted Red Bell Pepper & Tomato Soup…

Skinny Truffle Deviled Eggs

November 16, 2019 Amanda Plott

With the Holidays coming up quickly, I like to get a few fun appetizers in mind ahead of time. Deviled eggs are one of my staple snacks just because most people enjoy them, they're quick and easy to make, and they can be pretty impressive when you put a twist on the very classic and simple egg.

I’ve made a lot of deviled eggs in the past. Everything eggs, bacon & cheddar eggs, bloody mary eggs, jalapeño popper eggs, and even buffalo deviled eggs! Today I wanted to keep things simple with these deviled eggs while also elevating them, and truffle seemed like the best way to do that!…

Roasted Beet & Butternut Squash Salad (With Beet Infused Vinaigrette)

October 14, 2019 Amanda Plott

I love beets.

And the saddest part is that I went most of my life so far without knowing that. It was just in the past 5 years or so that I came to realize that I love them. I had some roasted beets on a salad and immediately fell in love. Tender and full of flavor with such minimal effort? Sign me up!

Another thing I love about beets? Their amazing natural color. Generally when cooking beets, I find myself discarding the juices. Today though? I got the notion to reuse those juices along with some olive oil to make one of the best and simplest vinaigrettes that I’ve ever had…

Fresh Turkey Salad

October 9, 2019 Amanda Plott

I’ve decided to call this ‘fresh’ turkey salad because I loaded it up with plenty of fresh fruits and veggies. No nuts. No dried fruits. Fresh, fresh, FRESH! I borrowed the base of this recipe from my Skinny ‘Leftover’ Turkey Salad, and made just a few tweaks and adjustments to get it to something that was a little more… fresh!

And now for the speech! Turkey salad as in chicken salad. Not a salad with chicken or turkey on it. But, rather a ‘salad’ that’s made up WITH turkey and chicken. The sort of thing you can smear on some toast for a turkey salad sandwich, or load on top of crackers…

Carrot Ginger Dressing

September 24, 2019 Amanda Plott

I’ve been playing around a lot lately with adding more and more vegetables to my meals and trying to do so in a sneaky and more clever way than just cooking them and plopping them on my plate. This Carrot Ginger Dressing is a fun asian twist on a vinaigrette.

I’m not quite sure how, but somehow the dressing ends up with an almost creamy texture. It’s light and bright and has just enough of a kick of ginger in there to keep you coming back for more. With it being so quick and easy to make that I’ll be using it this entire week for my lunches…