Cheryl's Chicken Soup

My mom is a pretty amazing cook, and not too long ago, she was kind enough to share her chicken soup recipe with me. It's simple, it's delicious, it creates enough soup to last me a week, and, did I mention it's delicious?

Ingredients:
- 2 to 4 chicken hind quarters bone-in (You can use any part of the chicken with bones, but I like dark meat and I like a lot of pieces of chicken in my soup, so I use 3-4 hind quarters of thighs and legs. Chicken can be frozen or defrosted.)
- 1 medium onion cut in half
- 8 whole cloves of garlic
- 2-3 carrots peeled and cut into large chunks
- 2-3 stalks of celery cut into large chunks
- fresh dill
- 4 bay leaves
- Seasonings: Bouillon powder, salt, pepper, and garlic salt taste

Directions:
- In a large soup pot, put in chicken. I have a large pasta pot with the strainer insert that I use to easily separate the chicken and veggies from the broth.

 - Add carrots and celery.

- Add onion, garlic, dill, and bay leaves.

- Add seasoning. You'll need to add a lot of salt and I think freshly ground pepper adds a lot of good flavor. But don't add too too much, you can always taste it when it's ready and add more salt later.
- Fill pot with water to cover all the ingredients.
- Place on stove over high heat and bring to a boil.
- Lower heat to medium/low and then leave on the stove for 2 hours.
- Now, here's where you can choose your own soup adventure:
                 - I don't like carrots or cooked celery, so I strain all ingredients out of the broth, then peel the chicken off of the bones and add that back into the soup. I throw away everything else.
                 - I will sometimes buy the "No Yolk" whole wheat egg noodles to add to the broth that cooks while I'm getting all the chicken off the bones for yummy Chicken Noodle Soup.
                 - Sometimes I use some of the broth in my rice cooker to make some rice, and then add a couple spoonfuls of rice to my bowl of soup.
                 - Try shredding zucchini and/or sweet potato in a food processor, and then adding that to the soup for a hearty vegetable soup. Just be sure to cook it for a little bit until the sweet potatoes are soft.
                 - This is also the recipe my mom uses to cook Matzah Balls in.....YUM!!
                 - Or....do all of the above! Keep the veggies, add the noodles, add some rice (noodles AND rice might be overkill), add the zucchini, sweet potato, and Matzah Balls, and enjoy some super delicious soup!

*TIP: If you leave the soup in the fridge overnight, you will notice a bunch of fat coagulated on the top. Use a ladle to skim it off.....it's pretty gross.

Kickin' Quinoa

So, Quinoa...what is it? When it's cooked, it kind of has the texture of couscous/rice but it's actually a seed, high in protein, gluten free, and pretty good for you. I guess people are kind of turned off by it because they're not quite sure what to do with it. Well, this is what I do with it....

Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups of quinoa
- 1 or 2 jalapenos diced pretty small (depends on how spicy you like it)
- 1 medium sized onion diced
- 5 roma tomatoes (4-5 depends on size, seeded [take out the juicy insides] and diced)
- 3 cups of water or stock (if you make less quinoa, the rule is 2 to 1 water to quinoa)
- Seasonings: Bouillon powder, salt, pepper, chili powder, and garlic salt taste

You may consider:
- Broccoli florets or asparagus spears (cut into 1 inch pieces after roasting) drizzled with olive oil and salt, roasted in the oven at about 425 degrees until they start to caramelize (about 10-15 minutes). Add them to the finished quinoa....it's delicious!

Directions:
- In a medium sized sauce pan over medium/high heat, drizzle in about 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil and then add diced onion. Cook onion until it starts to brown and caramelize (approximately five-six minutes) stirring often with a wooden spoon.

- Add in jalapenos, and cook for another 2-3 minutes stirring often.

- Add in 3 of the diced tomatoes and cook for yet another 2-3 minutes.

- Add in dry quinoa and stir ingredients together. Cook ingredients together for 2-3 minutes. Quinoa is going to stick to all the jalapenos, onion, and tomatoes....that's totally fine.

- Pour in water/stock and add seasoning and give a stir. Just so you know, you don't want to be frugal with the seasoning, quinoa doesn't have a whole lot of flavor on it's own.
- Bring the water to a boil and then cover and reduce heat for approximately 15-20 minutes. Keep an eye on the quinoa!

- Once all of the water has been absorbed, add in the rest of the diced tomatoes and the roasted vegetables (I highly recommend the roasted veggies! They add a lot of good flavor.)

If you're not quite ready for quinoa, you can do the same recipe with Israeli couscous (the large couscous...the basically tiny balls of pasta). The only difference you'd make is that the water needs to be boiling before you add it to the couscous and it doesn't need to cook quite as long.

Whoa, Edamame!!

Here is a recipe for a healthy edamame, spinach, tomato, and garlic pasta.

Ingredients:
- 1 package of small sugar plum tomatoes (or cherry tomatoes)
- 1 package of shelled edamame (available at Trader Joe's)
- 1 bag of baby spinach
- approximately 6-7 cloves of garlic finely chopped
- about 2 cups of dry whole wheat pasta (here I used whole wheat rotini, but I've also used whole wheat egg noodles which have the lowest calories/fat and it comes out just as tasty)
- Seasoning (to taste): salt, pepper, chili flakes, garlic salt

Directions:
- Prepare pot with water to boil pasta. In the amount of time it takes the water to boil and for the pasta to cook, the rest of the dish should be ready to go.
- In a large skillet over medium heat, put about 1 tablespoon of olive oil and then pour in all of the sugar plum tomatoes whole and sprinkle with a little bit of salt.
- Cover skillet, occasionally moving tomatoes around the skillet for approximately 5-8 minutes until the tomatoes start to char a bit and become easy to squish.
- Lower the heat just a tad, and use a fork to squish all the tomatoes.

- Once all the tomatoes are squished, add in the finely chopped garlic and add a little more salt, pepper, and chili flakes.
- Let some of the liquid cook out, then add in shelled edamame.
- Stir everything together with a wooden spoon, and let everything cook together for about 2-3 minutes on low heat.

- Add baby spinach a pinch more salt, chili flakes, and garlic salt, then cover and let cook for another 2-3 minutes until spinach begins to wilt.
- Stir spinach into edamame, tomato, garlic mixture, then, use a slotted spoon to drain and scoop pasta out of the water and directly into the skillet.
- Stir everything together for a minute or two until everything is evenly distributed.

Serve it up, and enjoy!

Meat, meet Pasta

It's easy, it hearty, it's healthy, and it reheats well....who could ask for anything more?!

Ingredients:
- 1 package of ground turkey (I was trying to keep it lean, ground chicken or beef works just fine too)
- 1 large can of diced tomatoes
- 1 small can of tomato sauce
- 3 red jalapenos (I like things spicy so I use 3. Also, I find red jalapenos to be a tad sweeter than the green ones, and I think they blend in with the color of the tomato to keep the dish pretty.)
- 1 package of whole wheat macaroni/elbow pasta
- hot sauce (depends on how spicy you like it, I use Tapatio.)
- Seasoning (to taste): salt, pepper, garlic salt, chili powder, chili flakes, cayenne pepper

Directions:
- In a medium sized sauce pot, bring water to a boil to cook the pasta in.
- In a large skillet over medium/high heat, drizzle a little bit of olive oil and add in ground turkey. Break it apart and move it around until it is mostly browned.
- Add seasoning to taste.
- Add jalapenos diced and cook down a little bit with the meat.
- Once meat is completely browned, add in entire can of diced tomato including juice and the small can of tomato sauce and hot sauce. Add more seasoning (tomatoes need a lot).
- Stir meat and sauce and cook uncovered on high to let some of the liquid evaporate. (Tip: you could put the heat a little lower and cook the meat in the tomato a little longer)
- Use a slotted spoon or a spider spoon thing to scoop out pasta and add right into meat sauce. Cook on medium/low for a few minutes until pasta has absorbed a lot of the extra liquid in the sauce.

 

Always Thyme for Chicken!

This is a chicken recipe that is super juicy, super yummy, and pretty easy. I wrote down the amount of ingredients I used (shown in the picture), but you can always add or subtract ingredients based on your taste and the number of people you need to feed.

Ingredients:
- 4 Chicken hind quarters (legs and thighs with bone and skin)
- 1 yellow onion (1/3 finely diced, 2/3 thinly sliced)
- 3 Roma tomatoes (cut into wedges)
- 1 red bell pepper (rough chopped into squares)
- 1 bulb of medium garlic (Yeah...the whole thing. Half of cloves crushed, other half chopped.)
- 1.5 tlbsp of thyme (fresh chopped)
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 tblsp BBQ sauce (I use Bulls-eye)
- 1 bag of small gold potatoes (cut into fourths)
- SEASONING (to taste): salt, pepper, garlic salt, chili powder

Directions:
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
- Add finely diced onion, crushed garlic, thyme, lemon juice, olive oil, BBQ sauce and seasoning to a bowl and mix it together. Add more lemon juice if more liquid is needed.
- Place chicken pieces in a roasting pan. Use a spoon to scoop onion/garlic mixture under chicken skin and all of the top and bottom of the chicken. Pour extra mixture on top of chicken.
- Spread out cut potatoes all around the chicken.
- On top of potatoes, surround the chicken with sliced onion, chopped garlic, tomato wedges, and red bell pepper.
- Drizzle olive oil over the top of everything and add salt and pepper.
- Place in oven for approximately 1 hour.

You can always drizzle some olive oil and a little bit of salt to asparagus and throw on top of the chicken about twenty minutes before taking the chicken out of the oven to have a delicious vegetable side dish. Serve the chicken with some potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and bell pepper for a complete meal.

What a Crock Tacos!!

This is a super easy recipe to make super delicious meat tacos. This recipe you can prepare at night in the crock-pot bowl, stick in the fridge overnight, pop in the crock-pot on low in the morning, and have a delicious hot meal as soon as you get home from work.

Ingredients:
-3 boneless chicken breasts (you can always put in more if you want, or you can use minute steak)
-1 medium can of enchilada sauce (or a small can of tomato sauce)
-3 to 4 bell peppers (I use a combination of red and green in slices as if you were making fajitas)
-sliced Anaheim chili peppers and jalapenos (as many or as few as you want)
-1 can of diced tomatoes
-1 sliced onion (....as if you were making fajitas)
-1 bottle of beer
-Seasonings: Salt, Pepper, Garlic Salt/Powder, Chili Powder, Cayenne Pepper to taste

You could also add:
-salsa
-cilantro
-lime juice

Directions:
-Place meat in the bottom of the crock-pot bowl.
-Add everything else on top....everything (the beer is the liquid and this dish doesn't require water).
-If you prepare this at night, put the top on the crock-pot and leave in the refrigerator overnight. This dish takes approximately 6-8 hours to cook.
-In the morning, take the crock-pot bowl out of the refrigerator, put it in the crock-pot cooker, and cook on low all day.
-When you get home, take out the meat and use two forks to shred it up and place back in the crock-pot.

How do you eat it?!?
-I will usually use some of the extra liquid from the tacos to cook up some rice in a rice cooker, and then I eat the taco mixture with rice, shredded lettuce, and avocado (if I have some) or salsa, wrapped in a tortilla.
-I will also sometimes just eat it on top of shredded lettuce like a salad.

Crock-Pot Tacos with rice, lettuce, and avocado. Yum!!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Cholent!!!

Cholent is a traditional Jewish dish that people would prepare for the Sabbath (or Shabbat). Shabbat starts every Friday night and lasts until sundown Saturday, and during this time, Jewish people are not supposed to cook. So, people would prepare cholent in a pot on Friday, let it cook overnight, and then eat hot delicious food all day Saturday. I have had a lot of different cholents (everyone makes it differently), but this is how I make mine:

Ingredients:
-3 to 4 Russet potatoes (peeled and cut into thick chunks approximately 1.5 inches thick)
-1 frozen Kishke (Kishke is traditionally meat product wrapped in intestines, but nowadays, they sell both meat and vegetarian or "Parve" options at Kosher markets. It is in the frozen section and they are covered in wax paper that must be removed before putting into the crock-pot.)

-1 to 2 diced green bell peppers
-1 diced large onion
-1 can of diced tomatoes
-1 cup of pearl barley (approximately 1 cup)
-3 to 4 whole cloves of garlic
-water (enough to cover ingredients)
-Seasonings: Bouillon powder (I typically use non-meat chicken soup bouillon), salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika (Add a lot of seasoning since everything will get watered down.)

Ingredients you may want to add:
-1 can of pinto beans
-eggs (whole, uncooked eggs will hard-boil overnight)

Ingredients you should definitely add if you like spicy:
-diced fresh jalapenos
-dried Thai chili peppers
-chili powder
-chopped chipotles (I added a few once and it came out pretty tasty)

Directions:
-In a large crock-pot, put barley, tomatoes, bell pepper, onion, and garlic. (Optional: add jalapenos, Thai chili peppers, and pinto beans)

-Peel off the Kishke's wax coating and push it down into the center of the ingredients.

 

-Place potato pieces all the way around the Kishke.

-Add seasoning to taste (Be sure to add A LOT of paprika)

-Fill crock-pot with water until the Kishke and potatoes are covered. (Optional: If you want eggs, place the eggs on top of the potatoes. Be sure they are submerged in water. When you are ready to eat the cholent, take out the eggs and peel them.)

-Cook on low for approximately 24 hours.
-Stir mixture at some point in between and add water if necessary.

As I said, everyone makes cholent differently. Once you have one recipe under your belt, feel free to come up with your own concoction. You may want to add meat such as chicken thighs (on the bone) or minute steak (it falls apart and is super tasty). A lot of people use a mixture of dried beans instead of canned pinto beans (there is a mixture that is actually labeled "Cholent Mix" at the regular market). Some people put in the bagged rice things in the morning (rice does not need to cook overnight, putting it in in the morning is fine). Really, you can put anything you want in cholent.

Cholent is a great dish to make at the beginning of the week because you have a hot meal waiting for you when you get home, and if you separate it out into tupperware, it reheats really well as lunch for the rest of the week. You may also freeze it and microwave it later on whenever you're in the mood for cholent.