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.

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!!