Beer Cheese & Broccoli Soup: The perfect winter/TMJ dinner

As you may know by now, I have TMJ -- super intense jaw pain and clicking/cracking noises every time I eat, talk and sing. Basically, my jaw is popping out of the joint socket whenever I do any of the aforementioned actions. It's getting so painful, I can't really eat much. Though, it may be due to the frigid weather we've had in Arizona.

To say I've had a craving for soups lately, then, would be a gross understatement. Soup fits the bill as the perfect non-chewing, cold weather pick-me-up food. After my dental appointment this morning, J.D. found me the following recipe, for beer cheese soup from an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives that features Otto's Sausage Kitchen in Portland, Ore. I promised myself I wasn't going to drink for a looooong time after the New Year's Eve I had -- I'm sure you know the feeling -- but beer in soup was quite a surprise. It mixed well with the thick cheesy texture and the caramelized onions to create a flavor I wouldn't mind having again, even amidst the world's worst hangover!

With slight modification, I bring you Beer Cheese & Broccoli Soup:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c butter
• 1 chopped medium sized yellow onion
• 1/2 c chopped broccoli florets
• 1/2 c chopped carrots
• 1/2 c chopped celery
• 1/3 c all-purpose flour (modified from original 1 c)
• 2 c chicken broth
• 1 (12-oz) beer of choice (we went with a Pilsner Urquell)
• 7 oz extra-sharp shredded cheddar
• 7 oz shredded Gruyère
• 2 c half-and-half
• 1/2 t garlic salt
• 1/2 lb smoked sausage (J.D. had it in his soup bowl, I opted out)

Directions:

Melt butter in a stockpot over medium heat. Add chopped onion, broccoli, carrots and celery. Sautée until softened.

Add flour. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often. Add chicken broth and beer.

Heat until it comes to a boil. Slowly add cheese while stirring until just boiling and smooth.

Add half-and-half and garlic salt. Reduce heat to low and cook until soup has thickened.

Cut smoked sausage into 1/2-inch pieces and place in a saucepan. Sautée sausage over medium heat until heated through. It will probably take about 5 to 7 minutes. Add sausage to the soup, transfer to a large serving bowl and serve hot.

Eat healthy for under $10/day!

Ok, so yesterday I brought you the beginnings of my meal on a budget! After factoring in the smoothie and my leftover stir fry for lunch my meal today for the first half of the day came to $6.42... and I still have some left over for snacking on today!

In today's post, I'm going to show you dinner and weekend breakfast that fits right into that same budget! My total meal prices yesterday came out to be $8.74 (this is just for one person). But that does not include my $1.16 beer, a $0.25 fruit strip and $0.13 clementine, but you get it, we're still under $10 for one day.

Dinner last night featured a (semi-)home made chicken tortilla soup that makes 4-5 bowls depending on how much you want to eat for $9.28. This gives you about $2.32 a bowl which was more than filling enough to stand alone as dinner! Well, except for the bottle of Landshark I needed to cool down my mouth ;)

À la Sandra Lee, here's my (semi-)home made chicken tortilla soup:

• 1 can Amy's chili: $2.58


• 3/4 can chicken broth: $1.19


• fill empty chicken broth can with tap water


• 1 can corn: $0.75


• 1/2 can olives: $0.25


• 3 frozen chicken tenders: $1.75


• 1/3 red pepper: $0.33


• 1 spoon marinated/minced garlic: $0.16


• 2 stalks celery: $0.10


• 1c carrots: $0.25


• 1 t. pepper flakes: $0.10


• 1/4 c salsa (I didn't have tomatoes): $0.38


• handful of cilantro: $0.30

Toppings:

• 1/4 c grated cheese: $0.50


• handful tortilla chips: $0.07

In a large pot, mix chili, chicken broth, water and corn on medium heat. While that's cooking, thaw chicken in microwave and then sprinkle each side with a pinch of pepper flakes and garlic. Chop the pepper and grill all together on separate pan.

With the chicken grilling and liquids simmering, chop olives, carrots, celery and cilantro. Once the chicken is done, shred the tenders for small, bite-sized pieces. Dump it into pot along with chopped veggies, cilantro, spoonful of garlic and salsa (or tomatoes if you have them).

Reduce the heat to low and let simmer for an hour, or until vegetables become soft. Add more pepper flakes, salt/pepper for taste and spiciness to your liking.

It was really easy and will last me until the next few days!

Now on to this morning's Saturday breakfast. Today's preparation cost me about $2.99, and left me with nine cranberry clementine protein pancakes. I only ate two, so today's breakfast cost me $0.64 plus $0.37 for a glass of chocolate soy milk for a morning total of $1.01. Not too bad ;)

Cranberry clementine protein pancakes

• 2 c wheat flour: $0.67


• 2 t. baking powder: $0.09


• 1 t. salt: $0.04


• 2 eggs: $0.33


• 2 c milk: $0.25


• 2 T vegetable oil (I went with applesauce instead): $0.08


• 1 scoop protein powder (Aria vanilla): $0.34

For my add-ins:

• zest and juice of two clementines: $0.26


• 1/2 c Craisins: $0.26

In mixing bowl, stir together all of the dry ingredients. Then mix in wet ingredients until blended well. For the last touch, add your fruit/flavors -- I went with Craisins and orange juice/zest. The possibilities are endless! Then you're ready to start flipping on the grill.

Now, protein pancakes are not as fluffy as regular pancakes are so prepare yourself for that. They are very dense because of the wheat flour and also the protein powder. This is a fairly savory recipe (minus the fruit) and makes for not-so-sweet pancakes. If you're looking for that pancake taste, feel free to add in some sugar or better yet, honey (I may have put in a squirt of honey after testing the first pancake)! Also, I noticed my mix was fairly runny at first, so I put in an extra half scoop of the protein powder and a pinch of flour. That seemed to have done the trick.

Instead of dousing mine with syrup and butter, I grabbed a cup of frozen tropical berry fruit mix and nuked it for about a minute in the microwave (1 cup of the bag came to about $0.67 and I can put the rest back into the freezer for later). When you microwave frozen fruit, the juices start to come out and it's just as good as any syrup you might find! And can we talk about how filling these suckers were?!?!?! I really enjoyed the subtlety of the orange juice; you really could taste it in every bite!

I know that a lot of us are on kind of tight budgets right now, but who says you can't eat healthy and have fun doing it on a budget?! Soon I'm going to give away my tricks to spending wisely within a budget (can you tell I just went grocery shopping last night??).