Slow Cooker Wednesday: Split Pea Soup

Possibly the most unappetizing picture ever, but I promise it tastes better than it looks! We've had a ham bone in our freezer since Thanksgiving so I finally gave in to the hubby's request for split pea soup. I have no recollection of ever having this soup before, so it was kind of scary because I'm not really a fan of ham or peas. Surprisingly, this soup only has subtle flavors of each and was actually pretty good! Super easy to prepare and paired with some crusty bread, it made for a pretty comforting dinner!

Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup
Source: adapted from Whole Foods

Ingredients

1 (16-oz) package dried green split peas, rinsed

1 ham bone 

2 cups diced ham (less if your ham bone is pretty meaty)
3-4 carrots, sliced
1 onion, chopped

2 ribs celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley (I omitted)
Salt and pepper to taste
6 cups low sodium chicken broth

Directions
Layer ingredients in slow cooker in the order given, adding the broth last. Do not stir ingredients. Cover and cook on high 4—5 hours or on low 8—10 hours until peas are very soft and ham falls off the bone.

Enjoy!

Slow Cooker Wednesday: Chicken Taco Chili

 

(sans fixings on top, I was hungry!)

In my quest to utilize my slow cooker more often I have realized that I seem to be in a slow cooker rut. Meaning almost everything I make is some sort of soup/chili/stew. But I decided, screw the rut because I wanted to make this chili. Such a simple, healthy, comforting meal to come home to on a cold night. And even better, this hardly took any time or effort to prepare. I mixed everything up (except chicken) in a big Tupperware the night before, kept it in the refrigerator, and in the morning all I had to do was dump it in the slow cooker and add the chicken. And obviously because I can't get enough, this is healthy enough for me to add extra cheese on top:)

Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Chili
Source: Adapted from Skinny Taste

Ingredients:
1 onion, chopped
1 16-oz can black beans, drained
1 16-oz can kidney beans, drained
1 8-oz can tomato sauce
10 oz package frozen corn kernels
2 14.5-oz cans diced tomatoes w/chilies (Rotel)
chili peppers, chopped (optional)1 packet taco seasoning
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp chili powder
3-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

For garnish: chopped fresh cilantro, sour cream, shredded cheese

Directions:
Combine all ingredients through chili powder in slow cooker. Place chicken on top and cover. Cook on low for 10 hours or on high for 6 hours. Half hour before serving, remove chicken and shred. Return chicken to slow cooker and stir in, cook for remaining 30 minutes. Top with your desired garnishes.

 Enjoy!

Spicy Asian Chicken Noodle Soup

Chicken noodle soup is a winter staple, but when I am not sick it is not something I have cravings for. When I had turkey leftover from Thanksgiving I wanted soup, but nothing traditional. And then one day this soup magically appeared in my google reader and all was right in the world.

This soup is an awesome take on chicken noodle soup. It is a bit spicy, but the flavor is amazing. This soup also comes together in a flash, especially if you use leftover chicken/turkey, but that's certainly not a requirement! I also added in frozen, shelled edamame to incorporate some veggies. I can't wait to make this again!

Spicy Asian Chicken Noodle Soup

Source: adapted from Joelen's Culinary Adventures, originally adapted from America's Test Kitchen

6 cups low sodium chicken broth
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons mirin (substitute 2 Tbls white wine and pinch of sugar if don't have mirin)
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
1 tablespoon Asian chili garlic sauce (or to taste depending on your preferred spice/heat level)
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into bite-sized pieces
2-3 (3 ounce) packages of dried ramen noodles
1/2-1 cup frozen, shelled edamame (optional)
3 scallions, sliced thin
1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves, minced (I omitted)
4 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
pinch of red pepper flakes for garnish (optional)

Bring broth, soy sauce, mirin, ginger, and chili garlic sauce to a boil in a large saucepan or Dutch oven. Add the cut up chicken breasts to the pot and simmer, covered, over medium-low heat until chicken is cooked through.

Open the packages of ramen noodles and discard the seasoning packet included. Place the dried ramen noodles and edamame into the broth and cook, stirring occasionally, until the noodles are just about cooked. Stir in the scallions and cilantro and serve in bowls. Garnish each bowl additional fresh cilantro leaves and a drizzle of 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil. If you like things on the spicy side, sprinkle a few red pepper flakes for garnish.

 Enjoy!

Cauliflower Soup

I have been on a huge cauliflower kick lately, and it's actually kind of disappointing that I went without veggies for so long because I was positive I did not like them. I'm glad I got over that! And holy moly, this soup is good. I actually cannot believe I had forgotten how delicious cauliflower soup could be. And I know that winter is now officially over, but that shouldn't mean that soup season is over as well. This soup is light enough that it can be enjoyed all year long, and it's actually pretty healthy (you can make it even lighter by not adding the cheese, but I am a firm believer that cheese makes almost anything better.)

Cauliflower Soup
Adapted from Branny Boils Over, inspired by The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients:
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 celery stalks, sliced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp fresh basil, chopped (or 1 tsp. dried basil)
1 1/2 heads of cauliflower, chopped into florets
4 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 cups whole milk
2 Tbsp flour
2 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese (I used reduced fat)
1/2 cup reduced fat sour cream
1 Tbsp olive oil

Heat olive oil over medium heat in large dutch oven or stockpot. Add onion and cook for 4-5 minutes, just to sweat, not brown them. Add minced garlic, saute until fragrant. Add celery and carrots, continue cooking for 4-5 minutes. Stir in salt, basil and cauliflower florets; cover and cook on low for 15-20 minutes.

Add chicken broth and bring soup to a simmer. Slightly warm milk in microwave and whisk in flour; add to soup. Simmer 15-20 minutes.

Using an immersion or standard blender, puree a small amount of soup (you can skip this step if you like your soup chunkier, but I wanted to thicken it up a little bit more.) Add parsley, cheddar cheese and sour cream; heat until cheese melts. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with crusty bread (see below); Enjoy!

Toasted Ciabatta
Slice a loaf of ciabatta bread, drizzle slices with olive oil. Toast in broiler until crispy. Peel a garlic clove and lightly rub over toasted ciabatta slices. Serve with soup.

Healthy and Hearty Chicken and Quinoa Stew

Last week I got pretty sick and all I wanted was some good chicken noodle soup. I got sent home from my internship on Tuesday and I stopped at Rainbow on my way to pick up some soup....I was less than impressed. I waited all week to have some time and energy to make this, and it was well worth the wait.

A slight twist on traditional chicken soup, but the combination of flavors from the veggies, dijon and hot sauce are pretty delicious. And if you've never heard of or tasted quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah), this is an awesome use for it. It was actually my first time having it, but it is a great source of protein, essential amino acids and fiber. It can usually be found in the organic section by the rice/couscous/pasta, but I bought mine from the bulk section at Whole Foods.

This stew takes a bit of time to prep as there is a lot of chopping involved, but once everything is prepped the work is basically done. This makes a ton of soup, so we had leftovers and were able to freeze a bunch in case one of us gets sick again!

Healthy and Hearty Chicken Quinoa Stew
Source: Picky Palate


2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
5 stalks celery, chopped
4 large carrots, peeled and sliced
2 Cups sweet pepper, chopped
1 large zucchini, quartered and sliced (I omitted, and just used a little extra celery and carrot)
64 oz chicken broth
15 oz can diced tomatoes
5 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, scrubbed and cubed into 1 inch pieces
3 Cups cooked quinoa
4 medium boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked, shredded and lightly seasoned with salt and pepper
2 Tablespoons Dijon Mustard
1 Tablespoon Hot Sauce
Kosher Salt, fresh cracked black pepper and Lawry’s Garlic Salt with Parsley to taste
1 1/2 Cups fresh parsley, chopped

1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Saute onion, celery, carrots, peppers and zucchini until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in chicken broth and tomatoes and potatoes. Increase heat to high just until broth starts to boil. Reduce to medium high and cook potatoes for 10 minutes or until fork tender. Reduce heat to low and stir in quinoa, chicken, dijon mustard, hot sauce and season to taste w/ salt, pepper and Lawry’s. Stir in fresh parsley and simmer until ready to serve.

8-10 servings

Simple, Hearty White Chili

Have any of you ever perused The Pioneer Woman's website? She's pretty awesome. Her entries are witty, cynical at times, good-natured and the kind of thing that make you want to meet her in real life. And her guest 'Lodge,'=AMAZING. Her website is dedicated to her cooking, photography, home, home-schooling etc., so if you have a chance, take a peek into her life!

Anywhoo, this is the first hearty dish I have made of her's, although I have many saved in my google reader to try at some point (#1 on my list, her Cinnamon Rolls). This chili has a good kick and is pretty simple to put together. The only problem I had was that mine stayed pretty soupy, which is probably because I used skim milk instead of whole, which I never have at home and forgot to buy. I did some googling and found that supposedly 1 cup skim milk + 1 tbls. melted butter= 1 cup whole milk, so I attempted this and I don't think it worked. I even added a second cornstarch/water mixture to try to thicken the chili, but that didn't work either. Next time I'll either buy whole milk or cut back on the amount of chicken broth used.

I used a whole cut up fryer chicken, and served this with cornbread. We had monterey jack cheese, salsa, jalapenos and sour cream as a garnish.

Simple, Hearty White Chili
Source: The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients

1 whole Fryer Chicken, Cut Up (or 3 Cups Cooked Chicken)
1 whole Medium Onion, Diced
4 cloves Garlic, Minced
2 whole Cans Green Chilies, Chopped
1 pound Dried Great Northern Beans, Rinsed
8 cups Chicken Broth
1 whole Jalapeno, Sliced
1-½ Tablespoon Ground Cumin
½ teaspoons Paprika
½ teaspoons Cayenne Pepper
Salt To Taste
White Pepper, To Taste
1 cup Whole Milk
2 Tablespoons Masa (corn Flour) OR Cornmeal
Grated Monterey Jack, To Taste
Sour Cream For Garnish
Cilantro For Garnish
Guacamole (optional)
Pico De Gallo (optional)
Corn Tortillas (warmed)


Preparation Instructions

Cover chicken with water and cook for 20 to 30 minutes or until done. Remove meat from bones. Set aside.

In a dutch oven over medium-high heat, saute onions and garlic for 2 minutes. Add chopped green chilies, then rinsed beans. Pour chicken broth into the pan. Add sliced jalapenos. Season with salt, pepper, and cumin. Place lid on pot and reduce heat to low.

Cook for 2 hours or until beans are done. Halfway through the cooking process, add 3 cups of cooked chicken.

When beans are tender, mix milk with masa (or cornmeal) and pour into the chili. Cook for an additional ten minutes to thicken. Check seasoning and adjust, adding cayenne pepper and paprika if desired.

Add some Monterey Jack cheese to the pot and stir to melt.

Serve chili in a bowl. Garnish with cilantro, sour cream, extra cheese—even pico de gallo and guacamole, if you have some on hand. Roll up warm corn tortillas and serve on the side of the bowl.

Slow Cooker Baked Potato Soup

Baked potato soup is one of my favorite soups this time of year, so I was very intrigued to find a recipe to make it in the slow cooker. When I saw that Cub has 5lb bags of potatoes for 68 cents (!) this week I figured it was a great time to try this.

Wow, is this soup good. It is so creamy, perfectly seasoned, and tastes better than some restaurant soup I've had. The only difficult thing about this recipe is that I do not have an immersion blender or a potato masher, so I ended up just using my blender and doing about 3 batches of soup. I did leave some big chunks of potato as well. Also, this makes A LOT of soup, so make sure your slow cooker is at least 6 quarts. We probably have enough left over to eat for lunch and dinner for the whole week! Maybe next time I'll try to halve the recipe.
Slow Cooker Baked Potato Soup
Source: A Year of Slow Cooking, adapted from RecipeZaar

Ingredients:
-5 lbs potatoes, peeled and diced in 1 to 2-inch chunks
-1 teeny onion, diced
-4 cloves garlic, minced
-1 teaspoon seasoned salt
-1/2 teaspoon black pepper
-1/2 teaspoon red pepper
-2 quarts chicken broth (8 cups)
-2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, to add at the end
-crumbled bacon and green onion or chives as garnish (optional)

Directions:
Use a 6 quart or larger slow cooker. Peel and dice the potatoes, and put them into the stoneware. Add onion and garlic. Sprinkle in the seasonings, and pour in the broth. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or on high for 4. The potatoes should be fork-tender. You can use a potato masher to mash the potatoes in the soup, or a hand-held immersible blender. I suppose you can also leave the potatoes in chunks, if you really wanted, but I wanted a smooth soup.

After smashing the potatoes, crumble in both packages of cream cheese, and put the lid back on. Cook on high for about 30 minutes, or until the cream cheese is completely dissolved. Stir a few times during the 30 minutes. (I let it cook for about 1 hour more after adding the cheese)

Garnish with crumbled bacon, green onion or chives, and I'd assume cheddar cheese would be just delightful.

Crockpot Burrito Soup

This was one of those recipes that I knew immediately when I saw it, I would need to make it, and make it soon! This soup is delicious and so comforting. It also seems to be much tastier the next day, but don't most soups and chili's?

I've actually made this twice already, and it is definitely better if it cooks for a long period of time. The first time we had this, it only cooked for a couple hours and it was very bland, but by the next day everything had married together and it was great. The second time, I let it cook for about 6 hours, and it was perfect. We also upped the rice to about 1 cup, so it is very thick and more like a chili than a soup. I also used a whole cup of corn just to get more veggies in:) We also don't used ground beef, so I used ground turkey. My changes are reflected in the recipe below (refer to originals to see the difference).


Crockpot Burrito Soup
Source: adapted from Loves to Eat, originally from elly says opa!

Ingredients:
2 tsp. oil

1 large onion, diced
1 lb. ground turkey
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 can (8 oz.) tomato sauce
5 cups beef broth
2 Tbsp. aleppo (or any) chili powder)
1 Tbsp. cumin
2 tsp. oregano
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 cup corn
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup uncooked rice (or, cook rice separately)

Directions:

Heat a large heavy-bottomed skillet over medium heat and add oil. Cook the onions for a couple minutes before adding the turkey. Brown the turkey with the onion and drain if necessary. Put back on the heat and stir in the garlic, just until fragrant.

Pour the turkey mixture into the crockpot and then add the tomato sauce, beef broth, spices, corn and black beans. Cook on low for…however long you’re gone.

Increase temp to high and add the rice, just until cooked. Alternatively you can put the cooked rice in bowls and ladle the soup over it. Garnish with your favorite toppings.

Homemade Noodles

This is my mom's recipe for the noodles she makes for Chicken Noodle Soup. The recipe is really simple, but don't let the dough fool you. It will seem too crumbly, and you may have to add a drop of water, but when rolled out it will turn into great noodles. Next time I will make a double batch though.

Homemade Noodles
Source: my mom

Ingredients:
1 cup flour (I used half regular and half whole-wheat)
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp butter
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 Tbls milk

Measure flour into a bowl and make a well in the center. Add all remaining ingredients, mix with a fork until stiff. (This is where it stayed crumbly for me, so I used my hands and added a couple drops of water just before rolling it out.)

Roll dough into a very thin rectangle, let dry for 20 minutes. Roll up dough and cut into strips (next time I will dust some flour on before rolling up in order to make the un-rolling a bit easier.) Unroll or shake out noodles, lay flat and let dry for 2 hours.

Boil for 10 minutes.

Enjoy.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Wow, it has been over a month since the last time I posted anything. My internship is keeping me a lot busier than I expected, so home-cooked meals have been lacking a bit around our house. And my treat baking has been pretty much non-existent, unless you count the pre-packaged cookies I made out of desperation one day.

Today I finally had some extra time, we had our first snow yesterday, and Andy and I are both feeling colds coming on....so that means it's soup time!! This is my mom's recipe, it's the soup I grew up on and there is nothing more comforting. I have fond memories of her homemade noodles drying on the counter, mainly because everytime I walked by I would sneak one, hoping she wouldn't catch me.

So tonight I made mom's chicken noodle soup with homemade noodles, and it was delicious. Everything went smoothly until I went to take the garbage out, and came back in to catch the dog eating the noodles off of the counter, boy was she in trouble! She only got to half of them, but it was too late to make any more so our soup was lacking in the noodle department.

In my excitement to eat, I forgot to take a picture of the soup, so the uncooked noodles will have to suffice for today. I'm sure you can imagine what chicken noodle soup looks like:)

Chicken Noodle Soup
Source: my mom

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken
Approximately 8 cups chicken broth
Approximately 1 cup each of celery, carrot and onion
1-2 Tbls chopped parsley
Potatoes (I used 2 red potatoes)
2 garlic cloves

Place chicken in stock pot, add broth (if chicken isn't fully covered add water until it is). Simmer about 1-1.5 hours until chicken is tender. (I also added roughly chopped garlic and onion to my broth, can't go wrong with that) When chicken is done, remove to cool.

Add carrots, celery, onion, potatoes and parsley to broth. Cook while deboning the chicken, about 1/2 hour. Return chicken to the pot. When ready, bring soup to a boil and add homemade noodles. Cook 10 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste (I also added a couple shakes of seasoned salt.)

Enjoy.