stories and recipes from a young mom who is still just trying to figure it all out!

Friday, December 24, 2010

Chicky Chicky Chicken!

I am watching Beau play video games with my sister and her boyfriend and it almost makes me want to join in! Almost... :) I have never been much of a fan of these things unless it involves a little frog hopping across traffic to the river. I am very very competitive so I like instant gratification; meaning I like to win as quickly as possible. All of this shooting people, story lines, blah blah blah. It's just not my thing. But it sure is funny to watch other people play!

I would just cuddle up with a cup of hot chocolate and watch them contentedly except that it has been nagging at me that I promised some chicken recipes. So I thought I would take a moment to not only jot them down, but also to brag that I still have chicken in the fridge waiting to be eaten! One 3 pound whole chicken has been feeding us for days now, and it all started with a broth...

I have been obsessed with Nadia G lately (if you don't know who she is, you can look her up on the cooking channel's website) and I wanted to try a soup she made called Aztec soup. So I bought the stuff which ended up being very affordable and that is what started all of these chicken meals. The recipe only called for 1 cup of cooked chicken, but I wanted a whole one so I could make a broth. So I bought one little chicken friend and made a delicious broth. Usually I just stick the chicken, carved of its meat, in a crockpot and let it go on low over night. But this time I left the meat on, chopped it up to expose the marrow in the bones, and let it simmer with some vegetables (all chopped). I sauteed some carrot, celery, onion, and garlic in a stock pot. Then I added fresh oregano, threw the chicken into the pot and covered it with filtered water. I simmered it for 2 hours and let me tell you, the house smelled amazing! After I let it cool, I strained all of the broth into mason jars and hand picked all of the chicken off of the bones. There was already flavor in the chicken from cooking in the broth which is a nice added bonus.

As for the soup recipe it is a Nadia G recipe and I am not sure what the rules are about putting somebodies recipes on these things so I will just tell you this: you can look up the Aztec soup recipe by looking for Nadia G on cookingchannletv.com. It is a delicious, flavorful soup that is kind of spicy and very hearty. There is chicken, black beans, corn and wild rice in it. I used wild rice but I know the stuff is expensive and after eating it I would say that brown rice would work just as well. And she grills corn on the cob and then slices off the kernels and uses it in the soup but I am here to tell you that frozen corn does the job! And creme freche is her topping of choice; sour cream people. Let's keep it simple. Oh and one last thing, I could not find dried chipoltle peppers anywhere in my local grocery store- canned chipoltle peppers in that yummy sauce will do the trick. So take my little handy hints and try the recipe! It is well worth it.

And then for the rest of the chicken? That has been the fun part! Sure I could have done the obvious: chicken enchiladas, more chicken soup, etc. But I decided to just throw it in anything and everything. Chicken sandwiches for Beau to take to work with just lettuce tomato and cheese were simple and a nice change from lunch meat. Grilled cheeses with chunks of chicken, and then a personal favorite is this cheap box of spiral noodles in a cheddar cheese sauce (kind of like macaroni and cheese) and then just toss in chicken! My next meal will be tacos which is so super easy, just toss with some spices and grilled onions.

I know I didn't exactly give you any solid recipes to work with but I hope I at least gave you some ideas! So go out there friends and buy up some whole chickens, because they really do save money. Hence the name of this blog; there is so much to be done with Three pounds of chicken!

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Quick and Easy Chicken Enchilada Casserole

cooked leftover chicken
a mexican blend of shredded cheese
green or red canned enchilada sauce
corn tortillas

heat your enchilada sauce and soften your tortillas one by one in it before laying it in a casserole dish. layer down your chicken pieces, top with some cheese, then add another layer of tortillas. You can make another layer, or just top with lots of cheese and some extra sauce. Bake at 350 until the cheese is melted and it looks bubbly around the edges. let it cool a little before cutting and serving.

There are so many ways to fancy this up and make it amazing, so use this as a little rough draft and make your own masterpiece! Or make it as is for a quick dinner when you need something fuss free. It freezes very well and can definitely be made ahead of time and heated right before serving.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Dog Food and Noodles

I remember being a kid and skipping into the kitchen to ask mom what was for dinner. "Dog food," she would say. "No mom, really! What's for dinner?!"

"Dog food."

We never actually ate dog food and I have no idea why these little moments always stuck with me. But they did, and last night when I was shredding beef from a leftover stew I realized it looked just like canned wet dog food! So this new recipe is now lovingly named Dog Food with Noodles. It is a wonderful recipe for leftover stew and thankfully tastes much better than actual dog food!


You will need...

leftover stew
corn starch (a couple pinches)
elbow noodles (cooked)
cheddar cheese, shredded- a couple handfuls


First off all, with your leftover stew, pull out your chunks of beef and shred them, then add them back into the stew. Heat the stew in a pan and add a little corn starch to thicken the broth. Toss the stew with cooked elbow noodles. Top with shredded cheddar cheese and put the whole pan under the broiler to melt the cheese and get a little golden crust around the edges.




Kind of like a homemade hamburger helper... but better! I served it with some garlic bread I made out of hamburger buns.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Chicken & Asparagus

I love everything about the holidays! Especially all of the food at all of the many holiday parties. We have all been there, eating too much and getting a little tubby around the middle. Maybe even getting lazy from all of the sugar overloads. But I don't even mind the extra weight or the laziness as long as I get to eat and eat and eat!

Some days after eating and eating and eating I forget that I actually have to make dinner so that we can eat some more! It seems impossible that we will ever be hungry again after some of these holiday spreads, but inevitably after some time we are indeed hungry again. And on these days when I am lazy from coconut macaroons, holiday cookies, and little plate after little plate of delicious finger foods, it really helps to have a quick meal on hand. One that is loaded with good for you-ness too so you can get that energy back! And as it would happen, I have one of those recipes.

My mom gave me this recipe a few months back and I made some improvements on it. It is a beautiful little dish that looks like it takes lots of time (but of course it doesn't), and what I really love about it is that your vegetables are cooked right in!


chicken roll, mashed potatoes and gravy, romaine lettuce salad

Chicken and Asparagus Rolls

Ingredients

1 1/4 pounds chicken breasts, pounded thin
4 slices mozzarella cheese
2 Tbsp crumbled goat cheese
1 lb asparagus
salt and pepper
and handful of flour
toothpicks

procedure

after flattening the chicken breasts to all the same thickness salt and pepper them and set them aside. (I marinated my chicken breasts for 4 hours in a dry brine. it was delicious! The brine is from William Sonoma. If you do not have a brine and want more flavor than just salt and pepper, you can make your own brine with course sea salt, pepper, dry sage and some dry thyme. rub the chicken, then pat it dry before cooking)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Place a slice of cheese and some goat cheese crumbles then some asparagus on one end of chicken and roll it up. Hold it together with some toothpicks. Do this to all of them.
Roll the rolled chicken in flour and brown it on all sides in a pan with some butter or oil. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 10 to 15 minutes. Remove the toothpicks before eating.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

My List Of the Bucket!

With the new year fast approaching I have been hearing a lot about resolutions, goals, weight loss plans... all the same old things we all seem to think about right around the time we put away the eggnog and hang up the new calendars. I happen to not really believe in New Years resolutions. It always seems to me that I either make them too broad or too specific. Like for example I might say "be a better person." Yes, well that is all fine and dandy except that you have no idea what it means. Or I might get really specific like saying "lose 10 pounds." This one is extra horrible because what I am basically telling myself is that I am not good enough, I am too fat and now I must lose weight. And if I don't lose the weight? Well I stress about it for the first few months of the year, eventually becoming exhausted and then failing, where I then feel like crap. Not good.

So as I have grown older and wiser (oh yes, I am very wise at my 21 years of age) and I have decided that New Years resolutions are not for me. But all the talk of goals and things has gotten me thinking about something I do believe in. Bucket Lists! I have had an unofficial bucket list going on in my head for years. Something I have never written down, and some things I have never even said out loud, but all things that I have been longing for and that I am determined to make happen by the end of this lovely little life I am living!

One year, ten years, it doesn't really matter to me. But at some point in my life these are the things that I want...

#1 This one sounds like a weird thing to have on a bucket list, but I have really really wanted one of these dogs ever since I discovered the breed! I want to own a Bernese Mountain dog! They are so beautiful and such sweet dogs. When I lived with the Buddhists there was one of these pretty dogs living there with us. Poor thing though, it was fed a vegetarian diet because he was "cruelty free" which is, of course, something I am sure all dogs are concerned about. He was so skinny and his fur looked like crap. I very often thought about sneaking some steak into that dogs bowl full of rice. (not just vegetarian dog food. The dog ate just rice!)

#2 I was reading a Backpacker magazine one day and saw a little tiny picture of this beautiful green hill and some ruins off in the distance. The heading said "4 day hike in Peru: Machu Picchu" I was instantly drawn to it and decided right then and there that I would hike to Machu Picchu someday. I actually went as far as to call a travel agency in Australlia and became friends with the lady who always answered the phone. It is my dream hike, my dream vacation, my dream whatever. I love that there is so much culture there, you get to see villages and beautiful scenery, and then at the end of it all, you have the satisfaction of ending up somewhere and not just hiking a giant loop where you end up back where you started.


#3 This one is a little embarrassing, because part of me feels like who am I to think that anyone would be interested even if I were to do it, but here it goes... I want to write a book. I want to write a cookbook, and I also have an idea for a fiction novel that I have been dying to get published. Silly? maybe... but I will do it anyway.

#4 I have always wanted to learn Italian and then go to Italy and order coffee. Sound a little reminiscent of Eat Pray Love? I assure you I had the idea way before Elizabeth Gilbert ever told us about her adventure! It all started when I bought an Italian cookbook, then from there I fell in love with the food, then the culture and then the language. I have always loved coffee. And wouldn't you know it? So do the Italians! Good strong espresso, just the way it was meant to be. And those beautiful words, that delicious food... I will go there someday in my life, and hopefully many more times than once.



There are a few more... okay, there are a lot more! But these are the four that I have held near my heart for many years. So there it is. There is what I want my life to be in 4 little paragraphs.

"Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

(I hope you're right Ralph!)

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Do stupid things Faster and with more Energy!

My dog is laying on my feet and I can feel his muscles twitch while he dreams. The baby is sleeping too. The house is quiet and covered in fluff from a giant stuffed bone I gave the dog a couple days ago. When everything is so quiet like this I can almost imagine my life before Ally, but I can never remember what it is I would do without entertaining and feeding a small baby! I can't imagine what life would be like if it was quiet like this all the time. Isn't it funny how you change once you have kids?

As if my life was not crazy enough, I have begun to move forward with plans to open a small business: a little coffee shop in downtown. Going through the paperwork and the motions, I am surprised by the simplicity of it all! So you want to open a business... go right ahead! It is kind of frightening that everyone has such a relaxed attitude about my future possibly unsuccessful (but hopefully successful!) business. I keep waiting for someone to say, "wait a minute! you are very young and it is possible that this may not work so maybe I should stop you! But instead they say "fantastic! let's open it as soon as possible!" Which is also very exciting as it is scary.

Yesterday I put on my nicest pants (which happen to be maternity pants that I had to keep up by folding over the elastic band) and gathered up my business plan and a notebook in a folder to go to a meeting at city hall to discuss my options and the steps I should take. The folder I was holding is red which is a "power color" and that fact was not lost on me. I wanted to look fierce, professional, and like I knew exactly what I was doing! Which could not have been further from the truth. The truth is, I know nothing about business. In my favor I have my knack for learning very quickly on the spot, an innate business common sense and a lot of business owners in my family. But the only thing I actually really know is coffee. Coffee is a passion and obsession of mine and being a barista continues to be my favorite job I ever had. So here I was in a fancy office sitting at the end of a long black table with a bunch of old men and my red folder. "what the hell am I getting into?" I thought.

But the meeting went well and as far as I know I fooled them all, just as I was hoping to. I am now looking for the building that I want to put my business into, and being that the mayor is a long time friend's dad, I feel like I have a lot on my side. So here goes nothing!

When I open this little shop, I have a collection of recipes I would like to use for the baked goods I will sell. One of them is a unique and delicious vegan brownie I have been making for some time now. It is really delicious, you won't even know it is vegan! And they are so easy to make.

Vegan Rose Brownies

1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup strongly brewed black rose tea (I use Gypsy's). whatever you use it should smell like flowers when it is brewed
1/2 cup oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
optional: 1/3 cup shredded coconut. pulsed in a food processor to be minced

preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a pan. Whisk together the dry ingredients. Stir in the tea, then the rest of the wet ingredients. Fold in the coconut if you are using it. Bake for 20 minutes

that's all there is to it!



Wednesday, December 1, 2010

ms. piggy is delicious...

Alright folks! Between the baby and the endless list of chores I have yet to get to today, this is going to be short and sweet. But I feel it is very much worth your time!

I have an incurable addiction to magazines. For some reason I just really love the quick bursts of information littered with tips, recipes and glossy ads for things I can't afford. But being that we are trying to be super money savers lately, magazines are not on my list of things I am allowed to buy. But every once in a while a girl has to make an exception... like when this months issue of Better Homes and Gardens is just bursting full of delicious looking recipes I must try! So on my coffee table it sits, dog-eared and with pages ripped out. One of those pages in particular I want to share with you. A recipe for a stew that sounds like it has odd ingredients but is actually one of the most delicious stews in my recipe box!

Pork and Sweet Potato Stew

1 2 1/2- 3 lb pork loin cut into cubes ( I actually used pork roast on sale that I cubed and it was fantastic.)

3-4 Tbsp flour

3 Tbsp butter

1 large onion, chopped

2 ribs celery, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 cups chicken broth

10 oz. apple-cranberry juice (a little over a cup)

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced

2 Tbsp fresh sage, chopped

(my procedure is completely different than the magazine's. so if you want to see how to do it their way, buy the mag!)

Preheat the oven to 325. cut off all if the extra pork fat and render in a cast iron dutch oven on a low heat. Once rendered, remove the fat pieces and brown the cubed pork on each side. Set aside. Add the butter and saute the onion and celery until soft. Add the sweet potato and saute for a couple minutes. Add the meat back into the pot, sprinkle with flour and stir to coat. Add the juice and chicken broth. The meat should be just barely covered, you can add more chicken broth or water if you need it. Season with salt and pepper and half of the sage. Put the lid on the dutch oven and place inside the oven. Cook for about an hour, until the flavors are melded together and the pork is cooked all the way through.

Delish! I served this stew with Hawaiian sweet rolls because it was right before Thanksgiving and they were on sale. The rolls were perfect with it!