2 posts tagged “cooking”

Course, i generally make it about once a week.  Today's was beef, but last week's was chicken.  It's quite tasty, cheap, lasts all week for meals and really low fat/low salt (I don't use the low sodium broth, I don't think it has a lot of flavor) but it's still less than any canned soup has.  This has also been posted to Bookishbiker's blog where she has another recipe for chicken soup that sounds fabu.

Chicken Soup
3 breasts of chicken, skinned and cut into bite sized chunks. (You can also substitute chicken "tenders" though they tend to have too much silver skin and tendon in them) I have no idea how many pounds, I generally eyeball.
olive oil for browning
garlic powder
1 yellow onion cut into bite sized chunks
4-6 cloves of garlic, rough chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, rough chopped
2 large bags of mixed frozen veggies of your choice (I generally use the broccoli, cauliflower, carrot mix or the corn, peas, carrots mix.)
1 large can red beans, mostly drained
2 boxes of chicken broth

Heat a large soup pot over medium high heat and add olive oil. Put the garlic powder to taste into the oil and let it heat up. Add the chicken and let it brown a bit, stirring frequently. Add onions, garlic and peppers and cook until onions are barely tender (about 5 mins). Add the vegetables and the beans. Stir frequently until they're warmed through and have released some of the liquid. Add 1/4 of 1 box of chicken broth to deglaze the bottom of the pot by scraping the good bits off into the broth. Add the rest of the broth (it might take less than the 2 full boxes, it's your call) and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionaly.
At this point, I generally shut the stove off and let it sit for about an hour before separating into single serving containers and putting in the fridge. I've also been known to put cooked rice or leftover plain pasta into this one right after I put the stock in.

Beef Vegetable
1 package (I have no idea how much) beef for stir fry. Cut into bite size chunks.
olive oil for browning
garlic powder to taste
red pepper powder to taste
paprika powder to taste
1 red onion cut into bite sized chunks
6-8 cloves of garlic, rough chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, rough chopped
2 large bags of mixed frozen veggies of your choice (I generally use the broccoli, cauliflower, carrot mix or the corn, peas, carrots mix.)
1 large can northern white beans, mostly drained
1 can diced tomatoes with green chilis
1/2 bottle of dark beer
2 boxes of beef broth

Generally, follow the same instructions as for the chicken soup above. However, I generally reduce about a cup of the beef broth and the beer in a separate pan and deglaze with that. Tends to cut the alcohol flavor of the beer and concentrates part of the beef stock. I add the can of tomatoes to that to heat through before I put it in with the rest of the ingredients and then pour the rest of the broth in.

I make really good banana bread (if I do say so myself).  So good, that people actually give me their old bananas so that I can make bread for them.  These are shots of the Drunken Peanut Butter Chip/Chocolate Chip Banana Bread I made last week.  The frozen bananas work well as long as you don't let them get too watery.

frozen bananas

frozen bananas

banana bread in the oven

banana bread done