Italian Chicken Soup

    If you haven't noticed, I'm kind-of in love with soup. Once the weather gets colder, I make soup at least once a week. I have several go-to recipes including vegetable beef soup, white bean chicken chili, pea soup, taco soup, black bean soup, and probably several others that I am forgetting. One of my newest favorites is this recipe for Italian Chicken Soup. It is originally from Pioneer Woman Cooks, but I have made some alterations to it that make it that much better and healthier (seriously Pioneer Woman, what's with all the heavy cream?) I also refer to it as "clean out the vegetable drawer" soup. Here are the directions for the soup. I added the ingredients list at the bottom for those of you who may want to try it.
    (Adapted from Pioneer Woman Cooks)
    To start, throw three bone-in skin-on chicken breasts into a pot of water on medium heat and bring it to a boil. Then cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Afterwards, turn off the heat and leave the chicken in the water to cool. This makes for juicier chicken than if you immediately take it out of the water and shred it. Once it has cooled for a while, then you shred it and discard the skin, bones, etc. I also pour out the water the chicken cooked in. Pioneer Woman uses it as the broth for her soup, but trying to skim off all the fat is a pain to me so I just use store-bought broth.

    Next, finely chop some oregano (about four or five tablespoons).

      To bring out the oregano's flavor, heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a small saute pan. Once it is hot, turn off the heat and add the oregano, stirring for about a minute. Then set that aside.

     Meanwhile, boil some water and cook about half a pound of ditalini pasta. Once it is done, drain it, rinse it, and drizzle on a little olive oil. Set it aside until later.

     Then it is time to chop the vegetables. I used an onion, a green bell pepper, three stalks of celery, and two jalapenos. This is where you can add whatever you think will taste good or whatever is currently in your veggie drawer in the fridge. You could try other colors of peppers or maybe some squash or zucchini. The possibilities are endless. Also, feel free to omit what you don't like.

     I also chopped up a couple carrots. I then cooked them in the microwave in some of the chicken broth for the soup to make sure they would be soft.

    Throw all the vegetables, except the carrots, into a big pot with some olive oil and saute them for 8-10 minutes until they start to get soft and even brown a little.

      Next, add two cartons of chicken broth, the carrots and the broth they were cooked in, and the shredded chicken. I also added a 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes and a drained and rinsed can of kidney beans. Bring soup to a boil and then reduce heat and let it simmer.

    To add even more vegetables, I chop about two or three cups of spinach and add that in to the soup to wilt. 

     Once the spinach has wilted, add a cup of heavy cream, oregano, and pasta to the soup. Allow it to simmer for a few minutes and then turn off the heat.

And there you have it. Yummy!

Ingredients:
Three bone-in skin-on chicken breasts
Two 32 oz. cartons of chicken broth
One bunch of oregano
Olive oil
1 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 15 oz. can kidney beans
Half a box of ditalini pasta (.5 pounds)
One chopped onion

One chopped green bell pepper

Three stalks of celery, chopped

Two carrots, chopped

Two jalapenos, diced

2 or 3 cups of roughly chopped spinach

1 cup of heavy cream

Directions:

Cook half the box of pasta in a pot according to package directions, being sure not to overcook it. Drain and rinse in cold water to cool. Drizzle on 1 tablespoon olive oil and set aside.

Place chicken in a large pot or dutch oven and cover in water. Bring to a boil, then simmer chicken, covered, for 30 minutes. Turn off heat and leave covered for 30 minutes. Remove chicken from pot and shred meat. Discard bones and water and set meat aside.

Heat olive oil in a small skillet over medium high heat. Add oregano and turn off heat, stirring for a minute to keep oregano from burning. Set this aside.

In a large pot, saute onion, green pepper, celery, and jalapenos in 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat until tender and golden brown, about 10 minutes. Cook chopped carrot in some chicken broth in the microwave until tender. 

To the large pot of vegetables, add chicken broth, carrots and broth they were cooked in, shredded chicken, kidney beans, and tomatoes. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Add chopped spinach and allow to wilt. Add cooked pasta, cream, and all the oregano and olive oil from the small skillet. Stir to combine. Turn off heat.

Tasty Thursday

     I had pretty good success with my new recipes last week, particularly the chicken pot pie and the chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes. Here are the full reviews:

Chicken Pot Pie with Cheddar Crust: A+

This was the best chicken pot pie that I have ever eaten. The crust was really great and not too hard to make either. The only problem I had with it was that my food processor bowl was too small for all the dough so I had to make half and then the other half. I left out the mushrooms and parsley from the pot pie and it was delicious. I highly recommend this recipe.

Man Rating: Tim gave this an A++. He says that I can now make this every other day. I am tempted. 

Country Fried Steak: A-

This meal was good, if you like this kind of food. My gravy turned out really well. It wasn’t my favorite meal of all time, but I’m pretty sure Tim was happy with it. And it definitely sticks to your ribs. And butt. And thighs. And...well you get the picture.

Man Rating: A

Perfect Pot Roast: B+

This was a good recipe, but just nothing that I haven’t already had before. I didn’t find it to be any better than any other pot roast I’ve ever had. 

Man Rating: A+

And here is what we're eating this week:

Thursday: Taco salads. I make my own taco salads using Mission Sun-dried Tomato Basil tortillas, which I bake over an upside down Pyrex bowl to make the shell. Then I fill it with ground taco meat that I cooked with chopped onions and black beans. And then I top it with lettuce, salsa, guacamole, etc. The shell is so good and not too unhealthy since I bake it. 

Friday: Peach BBQ chicken. I am finally going to use up the rest of the sauce from the Peach Whiskey Barbecue chicken that I made the other week. We will have it with some type of side vegetables depending on what appeals to me at the store. 

Saturday: Italian pie. This is a Publix Apron's recipe that my mom recommended. It looks really good and comfort-foody. And I love casseroles. Especially ones that we can eat for more than one night. I'm going to make some alterations to the recipe, like leaving out the pimentos and salami. And I'm going to use a blend of Italian sausage and ground beef instead of the ground beef/pork mixture. We'll have it with a nice side salad. 

Sunday: Homemade pizza. I will be attempting to make my own pizza dough using a recipe I found on Pioneer Woman Cooks. The reason I will be attempting this is because our grocery store does not sell pizza dough in the bakery and Tim and I both don't like the Boboli premade pizza crusts (plus they are expensive). The dough uses flour, salt, yeast, olive oil, and water and sounds pretty simple. I'm not sure what I will be topping it with, but I have some Italian sausage in the freezer so that will probably be part of it.

Monday: Leftover Italian pie. Because it will make plenty for us to eat for both a lunch or two and a couple dinners and I just love nights when I can reheat something and not dirty up my kitchen too much. I love cooking, but I hate cleaning the kitchen. Ironic, I know. I seriously would rather clean the bathroom over cleaning the kitchen. 

Tuesday: Chicken piccata. This is a Pioneer Woman recipe. I've made it before and it is delicious. Give me a sauce with lemon, white wine, and cream and I am there! And here's a secret. This isn't really chicken piccata because there are no capers in it. Don't ask me what capers are. I just know that I don't like them and I do like this. End of story. 

Wednesday: Island pork chops with sweet potato fries and sauteed spinach. This recipe is one from the P90X workout diet. And it does not taste like it should be part of any "diet." It is the most flavorful and delicious pork recipe that I make. It actually calls for a pork tenderloin, but because I have pork chops in the freezer, I will be using those instead. Here is the recipe, because you should make it. Even if you hate pork. Even if pork and you are mortal enemies. Actually, make it especially if you hate pork. Because you will love this recipe. And I'm all about being a peacemaker. 

Blueberry Zucchini Bread

     While researching recipes to freeze for after the baby is born, I happened across a recipe for blueberry zucchini bread. I've never made or even eaten zucchini bread, but I've always wanted to try it. And when Tim saw me looking at the recipe, he encouraged me to give it a shot. I ended up baking three loaves, two of which I froze for after the baby is born. That way we can have a little treat at some point and have something besides cereal or oatmeal for breakfast. The bread ended up tasting very good. I think it would be even better during the summer with fresh blueberries and zucchini. 

     I used some of the extra shredded zucchini in the spaghetti sauce we had Friday night. I froze two quarts of it for after the baby is born. You can't even tell it's in there, but I wanted to make sure we were eating plenty of vegetables after the baby comes and not a ton of fast food and unhealthy stuff. 

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups white sugar
• 2 cups shredded zucchini
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 pint fresh blueberries (I used frozen)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease 4 mini-loaf pans (I used three slightly larger pans).
2. In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar. Fold in the zucchini. Beat in the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Gently fold in the blueberries. Transfer to the prepared loaf pans.
3. Bake 50 minutes (mine took closer to an hour, so check often) in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted in the center of a loaf comes out clean. Cool 20 minutes in pans, then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely.

The blueberries and little flecks of green zucchini skin make the bread look really pretty when it's sliced. I made it on Friday and we've almost demolished a loaf already. So try out this recipe sometime if you like to bake. Or tuck the recipe away until spring when zucchini and blueberries are in season. You won't regret it.

Yum!

     What do you do when you have a bunch of freshly picked apples from the north Georgia mountains?     Scour the Internet for a yummy recipe, of course!
     I found this recipe for Whole Wheat Apple Muffins on a cooking blog called Smitten Kitchen. If you want to check out that blog, you can go here. I altered the recipe slightly and the muffins turned out great!
     Luckily, I had most of the ingredients already in my cupboards/fridge. 

Whole Wheat Apple Muffins

Yield: They said 12, I  got about 16

Ingredients:

1 cup (4 ounces) whole wheat flour
1 cup (4 1/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces) granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 large egg, lightly beaten
6 ounces yogurt plain yogurt, plus a splash or so of milk if the batter isn't moist enough
2 large apples, peeled, cored, and coarsely chopped

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Grease and flour 18 muffin cups and set aside.

Mix together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon, and set aside. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and add the granulated sugar and 1/4 cup of the brown sugar. Beat until fluffy. Add the egg and mix well; stop once to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.Mix in the yogurt and milk. Stir in the dry ingredients and fold in the apple chunks.

   Here's the final result. If you have the ingredients on hand, make these muffins. Make them now.