New Recipes for a New Year

I've been trying some new recipes lately.  Partly driven by leftovers and partly driven by wanting to try new things, I've been using other recipes for inspiration and tailoring them to what I like and what I have on hand.

Here's one for Chicken Tortellini Soup.  I must say, I think this turned out particularly delicious!  I had most of a package of 3-cheese tortellini in my refrigerator and was looking to use up about half of a rotisserie chicken, so I made this one up.  I referred to a few other recipes for proportions of liquid and spices, but then did some tweaking of my own for the actual recipe in the link.  And at just over 280 calories per serving, it's a healthy, hot meal, too.

I used a similar process to come up with this recipe for Ham and Cheese Quiche.  James loved it!  I liked it but thought it could use some sliced green onions, probably about 3 or 4.  (I left them out because Rachel doesn't like them, and then she ended up not caring for the quiche, anyway!)  I only use the green parts because the white are a little too hot for my taste.  Minced dehydrated onions would be also good mixed in to this.  I diced a brown sugar cured country ham steak but would use a smoked ham steak next time as I think the smoky flavor would be a better blend than the sweet flavor of a brown sugar ham.  I used Swiss and Parmesan cheeses but would like to try it with sharp Cheddar in place of the Swiss for a stronger cheese flavor.  I still thought it was tasty but think I can improve on it with these changes.  There were 358 calories in 1/6 of the quiche.

Lastly, there's Chocolate Butterscotch Fudge.

The original recipe for Peanut Butter Fudge is from Bakerella, who is always coming up with phenomenal ways for me to blow through my calories in a day.  In reading through some of the comments from her post on the PB fudge, I saw someone mention making it with butterscotch chips in place of the peanut butter and thought "Hey, I need to try that!"  This is a very rich and sweet fudge, perfect in small bites (and 105 calories per piece if you cut it into 60 pieces in a 9x13-inch baking dish).  I'd like to try the original recipe with the peanut butter, too; I think the peanut butter would make a nice contrast.  I was also thinking of other potential combinations, and one I definitely want to make is a Cherry Chocolate Fudge, using white vanilla chips and cherry extract in place of the peanut butter and vanilla.  I think that would be delicious, and so festive with a red layer on the top!