I have a confession to make.

I have an addiction. To healthy food.

Not something you hear every day. Unless you talk to someone who owns Now Eat This: 150 of America’s Favorite Comfort Foods, All Under 350 Calories by Rocco DiSpirito. I’ve owned a lot of cookbooks in my life, but I’ve never truly been sold on them. Every time I try to make a recipe from one, it’s either too hard, the ingredients are too expensive, and/or it’s WAY too unhealthy. But Rocco sold me on cookbooks… or at least his. The week I got it, I made 3 different recipes (including the one below) and I have plans both to repeat those and make many more.

Rocco is brilliant… he makes healthy substitutions for unhealthy ingredients, using things you would NEVER otherwise think of. I mean, would you ever eat brownies if you knew they had black beans in them? Probably not, but if you didn’t know it, you’d never know the difference.

The Mac & Cheese recipe was another one that intrigued me with its substitution. This recipe contains no milk, no cream, and no butter. Typically, that sounds like no good. But the addition of an onion-garlic puree, which is apparently supposed to mimic a béchamel sauce, is pure genius. Now I’m not going to lie and say this is the best mac & cheese I’ve ever had. Butter, oil, cream or milk will of course make any mac & cheese taste absolutely dreamy. But for 227 calories, it’s a definite win.

Note: My recipe below is slightly modified from Rocco’s original. One key change I made was adding the asparagus… needed to get in my veggies!

Ingredients

Nonstick cooking spray
Salt
1/2 box elbow macaroni
Small bunch asparagus
1/2 cup onion-garlic puree (see recipe below) *
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
Pinch cayenne pepper
1 cup shredded 50 percent reduced-fat cheddar
1/3 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
1/4 cup whole wheat panko bread crumbs
1/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Mist an 8-by-8-inch baking dish with cooking spray; set it aside.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add macaroni and cook according to package directions, drain.

Meanwhile, bring onion-garlic puree, mustard, and cayenne to a simmer in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring often. Whisk in cheddar until melted. Remove from heat and whisk in yogurt.

Whisk the cheese sauce to remove the lumps!

Saute asparagus in a medium skillet. Toss with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper to taste. Once cooked, chop into 1/4-inch pieces and add to cooked macaroni.

In a medium bowl, toss the macaroni and asparagus with the cheese sauce. Season with salt to taste. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish and sprinkle panko over the top. Top with Parmesan.
Bake until Parmesan is melted and macaroni is hot throughout, about 10 minutes.

Doesn't look like an under-250-calorie meal, does it?

* Onion-Garlic Puree

1/2 large Vidalia onion
5 tbsp minced garlic
1/2 cup water

Combine  ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl. Season with salt and black pepper to taste. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and microwave on high 10 minutes. Pour the mixture into a food processor; blend until smooth. Season with salt and black pepper to taste.

In the cold winter months, my cooking is all about comfort foods. Not only do they make you feel good, but when you’re snowed in or it’s just too cold to go outside, I think it’s fun to spend a day cooking some nice soup or stew over the stove in large quantities so it makes multiple meals for weeks!

Soup also freezes really well, so when you make a nice big pot, you can immediately freeze half of it for dinners in a few weeks or a month– doing this really makes you feel like it’s worth all the time you put in to make it in the first place, because you get to enjoy it for so long afterward!

I admit, this was my first try at making a chicken soup, including stock, from scratch. I was a little nervous when I began, assuming I’d screw something up along the way. But honestly, while it was a lot of work and I can’t say it was easy, if you follow good directions it’s really not super hard… and the results are well worth it!

Since I had never made a chicken soup before, I searched long and hard for a good recipe I could use as a base. I found a great one on the Food Network website courtesy of Tyler Florence. I made very few tweaks since this was my first chicken soup, and was very pleased with the result… I would make this exact recipe again any time!

The recipe is split into 2 parts: the stock first, and the soup second. The stock needs to be finished before you can start with the soup part, so the recipe should be followed as it reads below, from start to finish. Of course, if you’re looking for a quicker solution, you can buy a box of pre-made chicken stock, and start with the Soup recipe below, using the boxed stock in place of the homemade stock. This will cut a good 1-2 hours off of your prep time!

Chicken Stock Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 whole free-range chicken (about 3 1/2 pounds), rinsed, giblets discarded
• 2 carrots, cut in large chunks
• 3 celery stalks, cut in large chunks
• 1 large white onion, quartered
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/4 bunch fresh thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

Place the chicken and vegetables in a large stockpot over medium heat. Pour in only enough cold water to cover (about 3 quarts); too much will make the broth taste weak. Toss in the thyme, bay leaves, and peppercorns, and allow it to slowly come to a boil. Lower the heat to medium-low and gently simmer for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, partially covered, until the chicken is done. As it cooks, skim any impurities that rise to the surface; add a little more water if necessary to keep the chicken covered while simmering.

Carefully remove the chicken to a cutting board. When its cool enough to handle, discard the skin and bones; hand-shred the meat into a storage container.

Carefully strain the stock through a fine sieve into another pot to remove the vegetable solids. Use the stock immediately or if you plan on storing it, place the pot in a sink full of ice water and stir to cool down the stock. Cover and refrigerate for up to one week or freeze.

Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 medium carrots, cut diagonally into 1/2-inch-thick slices
• 2 celery ribs, halved lengthwise, and cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices
• 4 fresh thyme sprigs
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 quarts chicken stock, recipe follows
• 8 ounces dried wide egg noodles (or any type of pasta you have on hand- I used gemelli)
• 1 1/2 cups shredded cooked chicken
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 handful fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped

Place a soup pot over medium heat and coat with the oil. Add the onion, garlic, carrots, celery, thyme and bay leaf. Cook and stir for about 6 minutes, until the vegetables are softened but not browned. Pour in the chicken stock and bring the liquid to a boil. Add the noodles and simmer for 5 minutes until tender. Fold in the chicken, and continue to simmer for another couple of minutes to heat through; season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with chopped parsley before serving.

I was very pleased with the results of my first-ever completely from scratch chicken soup, and I will absolutely be making it again sometime. Another benefit of making the stock from scratch is that now I have a lot of extra already-cooked chicken so I can make even more quick dinners, or freeze it for another time. Since it’s already been cooked, another thing I can do is make it into a casserole and freeze it so I have a really easy made-ahead meal for some night that I get home late from work or I’m too busy to prepare a meal from scratch.

Do you have a favorite soup recipe or any tips/tricks to making soups from scratch? Share your ideas with me in the comments!

Few things taste better on a cold winter night than a nice bowl of beef stew – in my opinion, the ultimate comfort food. Once the Christmas season ended, my husband and I needed something as a pick-me-up in the snowy, frigid week between Christmas and New Years in Boston, so I spent a day whipping up a delicious beef stew.

• 2 pounds stew beef
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 cups water
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 clove garlic, peeled
• 1 or 2 bay leaves
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• Dash ground allspice
• 1 bunch fresh thyme leaves, removed from stems
• 3 large carrots, sliced
• 3 ribs celery, chopped
• 4 potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch

Brown meat in hot oil. Add water, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, bay leaves, onion, salt, sugar, pepper, paprika, thyme, and allspice. Cover and simmer 30 minutes. Add carrots, potatoes, and celery. Cover and simmer 1.5 to 2 hours longer. Remove bay leaves. To thicken gravy, remove 2 cups hot liquid. Using a separate bowl, combine 1/4 cup water and cornstarch until smooth. Mix with a little hot liquid and return mixture to pot. Stir and cook until bubbly.

This stew came out delicious.  I would definitely suggest that you only make it if you really have a full 3 or 4 hours in which to do so, though, because by the time it was ready (I hadn’t planned enough in advance) we were starving!! It makes plenty for 2 dinner servings and a few lunches as well… the perfect amount for some nice leftovers so we can prolong the great feeling of this comfort food!
What’s your favorite comfort food for winter? Do you have a go-to recipe or do you find one on the internet to make your own, like I did?