Copycat Broccoli Cheddar Soup from Panera

I get excited every time my Food Network Magazine arrives in the mail. I always turn to the Copy That section, where they always have a great copycat recipe. Through this section I have learned how to make those great soft pretzels that you get at the mall, wonderful frozen yogurt, and those fantastic Cheddar Bay Biscuits like they have at Red Lobster. This edition of Food Network magazine has the copycat recipe for Panera's Broccoli Cheddar soup, served in bread bowls. Needless to say, I ran to the store right away and bought the ingredients necessary to make this soup. You can find the recipe here on the Food Network.

This soup recipe is velveety smooth and sinfully delicious! I loved it so much that I am craving it again and will be making it very soon! Altogether, the recipe takes about 1 hour to make, but it is seriously good and very worth it. This is a must make if you are a broccoli cheese fan. I am submitting this to Deb over at Kahakai Kitchen for Souper Sundays.

All in all, we got about 5 inches of snow here in Kentucky. Five inches is a pretty big snowfall for this area. The schools are closed and even some stores in the mall closed early last night. The kids aren't used to this much snow and they just had a ball. Perfect evidence of a good time in the picture below.
Could the smile be any bigger?

Cheeseburger Soup and Copycat Cheddar Bay Biscuits

I was all set to post my Tyler recipe today, Potato Gnocchi with Braised Swiss Chard and Pomegranate Brown Butter, but there was a problem with the pictures and I need to replate it and take some more pictures. It was a delicious dish and it deserves a great picture. Instead, I am bringing you Cheeseburger Soup and Copycat Cheddar Bay Biscuits (you know, Red Lobster style).

Awhile back, I saw Teresa at A Blog about Food make a cheeseburger pasta, which I thought sounded delicious! Then a couple of days later Beth at The Seventh Level of Boredom made a cheeseburger soup. I had these recipes on my mind for days and couldn't shake them. I just knew both of them were people pleasers. I was debating which one to make when my mom called and said she was making these delicious Cheddar Bay Biscuits. I knew instantly that the soup would go perfect with the biscuits and headed over to mom's with all the soup ingredients.
I was not about to miss out on the copycat version of the Red Lobster biscuit. Let's just say this recipe for the copycat biscuits was right on. The recipe made 14 biscuits. Mom and I ate 10 of them! Yes, 10!!! The soup was delicious, but the biscuits were addictive. You can find the recipe for the biscuits here, on the food network. This recipe was also in their food network magazine under the "Copy That" section. On a personal note, this is my favorite page of the magazine and I have made each of the recipes. There have been some great finds such as, copy cat Auntie Anne's soft pretzels, Pinkberry frozen yogurt, Olive Garden's salad and breadsticks, and now these delicious, fluffy, cheesy, garlicky, scrumptious and lusciously addictive Cheddar Bay Biscuits. Can you tell I'm a carb queen? Make them as a treat one day, you will not be disappointed.

I am submitting the cheeseburger soup to my friend Deb at Kahakai Kitchen for Souper Sundays. This was an easy and delicious soup. It was even more delicious the next day and was happily gobbled up by all. This has become one of my favorite soups and will be made on a regular basis now. I loved that each person could customize their soup with their favorite burger topping. Ideas for toppings are: bacon(of course), tomato, chopped dill pickle or relish, red onion, and many more. I went ahead and put about a teaspoon of relish on my soup, which seemed to really brighten up the flavor of the soup. A delicious and comforting family favorite. I followed this recipe from the Recipezaar website. The recipe is packed with cheese, meat and potatoes, a total man pleaser, and anyone else for that matter! Head on over to Deb's site tomorrow to check out all the delicious soups, sammies, and salads!!


We are having our last couple days of great weather here in Kentucky. This weekend the temperatures will almost reach 70 degrees outside and then the weather is going to start turning for the winter. I raked up a huge pile of leaves the other day thinking that my toddler son would love jumping in the leaves. He had more interest in the rake than the leaves. Turns out that my daughter, Olivia, was the one who really enjoyed herself!!

Oikos Greek Yogurt Week #2 - Almost-Famous Frozen Yogurt

This is my second week working with the Oikos Greek Yogurt and I made Food Network's Almost-Famous Frozen Yogurt. This almost-famous frozen yogurt is a copycat recipe for the famous and yummy Pinkberry frozen yogurt. Pinkberry is located in New York, California, and Texas and is becoming really popular as a healthy treat. Check out the Pinkberry website here. They have many toppings for their frozen yogurt, such as lychee, mango, fruity pebbles, granola, honey, and many others. I chose to top my frozen yogurt with fresh raspberries.

Food Network features a brand new almost-famous recipe in each issue of their magazine. These are my favorites recipes in the magazine. So far, I have made every one of them and have yet to be disappointed. This recipe is marvelous! I feel like it is a healthy treat that is very satisfying. I found the end product to be creamy and tangy with lots of possibilities. I would love to add mix-ins to the yogurt and also make a frozen yogurt parfait.

Food Network recommends using Greek yogurt when making this frozen yogurt. I made this recipe both ways and found that when using Greek yogurt the end product was much creamier. This is one delicious recipe that you will love and feel good about serving to your family. You can even set up a frozen yogurt bar with all different kinds of toppings!!

Almost-Famous Frozen Yogurt - adapted from Food Network Magazine
2 cups plain whole-milk yogurt
2 cups plain nonfat or reduced fat Greek yogurt **Greek yogurt is much creamier**
1/2 cup superfine sugar
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
fresh fruit or other toppings

Whisk both yogurts, the sugar and corn syrup in a bowl until combined. Pour into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.

For a soft consistency, serve right out of the ice cream maker. For a firmer texture, transfer the frozen yogurt to a covered container and freeze for up to 2 hours. Serve with assorted toppings.

This recipe takes only 10 minutes and makes 1 quart of frozen yogurt. The kids and I really enjoyed making this and we feel even better about eating it. We had some leftovers that we stored in a reusable Tupperware container with great results.

We loved this recipe so much that we are thinking about experimenting with the other flavors of Greek yogurt at the market. I used plain in this recipe, but I am tempted to try both the honey and the strawberry!! This recipe was delicious.

Baked Potato Skins

It all started with nail polish, purple nail polish to be exact. I thought that I would paint my toes since I had some time alone. I must have had butterfingers because I dropped that purple nail polish and it broke. In fact, it broke all over my white tile floor in the bathroom!! I don't think I'll ever forget the bright purple against all that white tile! I went into a total panic and my husband ran upstairs. He was able to get out all the stains and I was so thankful. I have never had an accident with nail polish and I couldn't believe I had broke an entire bottle.

The next morning I woke up, went into the pantry and looked in horror at my wood laminate floor. When I had got the cleaner out for the nail polish spill, another cleaner had fell and leaked onto the wood laminate floor. There isn't too much you can do to fix that damage.

The next weekend, when leaving work, I backed my car up into a guard rail and pretty much took off the front bumper. Don't you hate that sick feeling you get in your stomach as you get out and walk around to survey the damage?

That evening, I came home and made Paula's basil grilled chicken. When I downloaded the pictures I noticed that they were all blurry and out of focus. I hadn't had time to download any of the pictures for the past eight or so recipes I had made. My husband spent the evening trying to fix the camera and now it is working better than ever. The downside is that I have several blurry pictures for you coming up. The upside is that my new pictures are better than ever.

In the meantime, I'm wondering, if I've become clumsy and accident-prone. Should I be allowed to paint my nails, drive my car and operate a camera? I'm not sure. I did however manage to bake these delicious baked potato skins. The recipe can be found here on Recipezaar.

It is a simple recipe that begins by baking the potatoes. Once baked, you remove most of the potato flesh and season with a great combination of oil, paprika, garlic and Parmesan. You bake the skins cut side up for 8 minutes and then turn over and bake another 8 minutes. Once the skins are crispy, you add the cheese and bacon filling and throw back in the oven until melted. Top with all your favorite toppings and enjoy! They were ooey, gooey delicious!! The seasoning added to the potato skins put them over the top!

P.S. Last night at work I dropped a batch of bath bombs and broke one. After watching me drop the bags and various other things for hours they felt bad for me. They let me take home the broken bath bomb, which happened to be one of my favorites. Maybe my luck is looking up!!

Almost Famous Breadsticks

I served these breadsticks alongside the "almost famous" garden salad on Mother's Day. These breadsticks are meant to be just like the ones served at Olive Garden. They were very zesty and buttery and the texture of the dough was just perfect. The recipe makes a very generous 16 big breadsticks. The whole batch was gone in no time at all. I grabbed two and wrapped them up for my husband so that he could have a chance to try them! Sometimes you gotta be sneaky like that : )

The best part about these breadsticks is that they are very quick since they only require a 45 minute rising period. There is no second rising which makes them much quicker to serve. I would like to share that the dough did not rise very much at all. In fact, when I removed my kitchen towel and looked at the dough I was scared. I thought maybe I had done something wrong and the dough had not rose. They were only slightly puffy but I decided to go ahead and bake them anyway. I was so happy when they turned out so great.

The only change I made to this recipe was adding more butter. How can you ever go wrong with more butter? I wanted them to be extra special for Mother's Day! The breadsticks are brushed with a melted butter and salt mixture before baking. When they come out of the oven they look so moist and you can see all that lovely salt glistening on the tops. Then you top them with more melted butter, garlic salt and I also added Italian seasoning. The recipe does not call for Italian seasoning but I think this greatly improved the taste of the breadstick. They were extremly flavorful and zesty. I'm so excited to share this quick and easy recipe for breadsticks. I really hope that someone will try it and let me know what they think.

Almost Famous Garden Salad - Olive Garden Style

I have a subscription to the new TV Food Network Magazine and I can't tell you how much I love it. My favorite section of the magazine is the Almost Famous section. In the last issue they gave a recipe for soft pretzels that taste just like the ones you buy in the shopping mall. Imagine my surprise when I saw the most recent issue has the recipe for Olive Garden's salad and breadsticks!! I know my whole family (especially the women) love going to Olive Garden just for the salad and breadsticks alone. I knew instantly that I wanted to make this for my mom and mother-in-law for Mother's Day. I doubled the recipe and took a salad to each of them yesterday. We all LOVED this salad. It was the perfect lunch for us this year as we are all craving fresh and light salad dishes. Even the men enjoyed it!! I am really urging everyone to try this one. It's as simple as making a quick dressing in a blender and tossing it with some prewashed salad mix.

Almost-Famous Auntie Anne's Soft Pretzels

Ok, so I'll admit it......I just discovered baking with yeast last week and now it is my new obsession!! I found a recipe for Auntie Anne's soft pretzels in my current Food Network Magazine. It looked easy enough and we have been trapped inside all week, so why not try it?

Well, they are exactly like the real thing. My daughter said they were great (she ate two) and my husband agrees they taste exactly like Auntie Anne's. We are going to be making these a lot. Tonight we tried the original salt pretzel, a pretzel dog, and a jalapeno and cheese pretzel.

The recipe makes 6 pretzels. So if you or your family members are addicted to eating these pretzels when you are at the mall, here you go....

ALMOST-FAMOUS SOFT PRETZELS:

1 cup milk - I used 2%

1 pacakage active dry yeast

3 tablespons packed light brown sugar

2-1/4 cups a/p flour, plus more for kneading

10 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for greasing

1 teaspoon fine salt (I used regular tablesalt)

1/3 cup baking soda

2 tablespoons coarse salt (I used kosher salt)

FOR THE SAUCE: - MIX TOGETHER-
1/4 cup mayo
1/4 cup dijon mustard
3 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar

To make the pretzels: warm the milk in a saucepan until it's about 110 (I use a candy thermometer); pour into a medium bowl and sprinkle in the yeast. lLet the yeast soften about 2 minutes; stir in the brown sugar and 1 cup flour with a wooden spoon. Dice 2 tablespoons butter and soften; stir into the mix. Add the remaining 1 -1/4 cups flour and the fine salt to make a sticky dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead (with hands), adding more flour if needed, until smooth but still slightly tacky, about 5 minutes. Shape into a ball, place in a lightly greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm spot (oven) until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 450 and grease a large baking sheet. Punch the dough to deflate it, then turn out onto a floured surface. I recommend letting the dough rest (covered for at least 30 mins). Divide the dough into 6 pieces. Roll and stretch each piece with the palms of your hands into a 30-inch rope, holding the ends and slapping the middle of the rope on the counter as you stretch. Form each rope into a pretzel shape.

Dissolve the baking soda in 3 cups warm water in a shallow baking dish. Gently dip each pretzel in the soda solution, then arrange on the prepared baking sheet and sprinkle with the coarse salt. (This got a little messy- I used my hands and sprinkled the soda solution on both sides of the pretzel) Bake until golden, about 10 minutes. Prepare the sauce and refrigerate.

Melt the remaining 8 tablespoons butter in a shallow dish. Dip the hot pretzels in the butter, turning to coat; place on a wire rack to let excess butter drip off. Serve the pretzels warm with the sweet mustard sauce.

You really have to try these pretzels. You can even make pretzel bites and your own cheese or pizza sauces. Have fun experimenting!!