Austin's Chicken Soup II: Easy and Reasonably Quick

A friend of mine were talking today about the yummiest Chicken Noodle Soup she'd ever had (we're having a church thing tomorrow and we're all bringing soups) and she wanted the recipe BUT the woman who had made it just threw in pinches of this and that...  So I said I'd write down my chicken noodle soup recipe.  It's the same receipe for chicken, for beef and for turkey noodle soup. 

I love to make this soup and eat it all week for lunch.  It's quick, it's healthy, and oh wow, is it yummy.  :)

It looks like a lot of work, but IT'S NOT.  I just want to make it clear you can't dump all of these things into one pot and be done.  They need to be taken care of individually then added together for the grand finale.  If you're a fast chopper and your meat's thawed, you can be done in 30 minutes or less.

Category: chicken, soup, noodles, comfort food, beef, turkey

Preheat: --

Part One: Meat
1-2 chicken breast halves, seasoned, cooked and cubed (when I say halves, it's half of what the chicken originally had on her in life; also I like my chicken baked or stir-fried.)
OR
1 small beef shoulder or butt, seasoned cooked and cubed(I use my crockpot.  I'll have to put that recipe on here later, too)
OR
1/2 turkey breast, seasoned, cooked and cubed
OR
(If you want to cheat, and don't we all!) Abt. 12 oz. Canned chicken meat / turkey meat

1.  Set meat aside.  You can do this step the night before.  It's perfectly fine to add cold meat to the final soup... it'll heat up fast!

Part Two: Noodles & Potatoes
12-16 ounces noodles:

• spaghetti noodles, broken up
• spiral noodles (these tend to suck up too much water--this is your fair warning!)
• fettucine noodles
• (etc.)

(opt, but recommended) 4-6 Potatoes, chopped
2 t. Salt

1.  Add salt to the water (enough to cover everything, plus an inch.  use your eyeballs to measure , or like I do, fill the water up to the handles) and start it boiling.

2.  Add potatoes.  Boil for two minutes.

3.  Add noodles.  Boil for package directions, until the noodles are al dente.  In other words, don't cook them until they're soft!  They should not be crunchy, but not super-soft, either.  8 1/2 minutes should be good  for any noodle that says 10 minutes on the package.

4.  Drain.  All of the cooking shows say to retain a little pasta water.  It helps thicken things up a little later on  I say reserve if you can remember and if it's easy... and then only 2 cups.

5.  Set aside.  Again, you can do this earlier.  In fact, sometimes I cook double the pasta when I'm making it for dinner, putting the 2nd half in the fridge.  Of course you still have to do the potatoes if you're putting those in the soup.

Part Three:
1 whole medium or large onion (yellow or sweet), finely diced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
(opt, but recommended) 4 Carrots, sliced
(opt, but recommended) 4 stalks of Celery, chopped
(opt, but recommended) 6 Mushrooms, diced
(opt) 4 Zucchini, finely diced
(opt) 1-3 Jalapeno, diced (this changes the flavor slightly and deepens it, AND gives a nice little je ne sais quoi)
1/2 Tablespoon Butter (Usually you add more, but I opted for a little butter fat for flavor and sub in the olive oil for a heart-healthy fat.)
1 Tablespoon Olive oil
(opt) 1/4 c. Flour

1.  Get the butter and olive oil combo hot in a large sauté pan

2.  Lower the heat to medium-high (between 7 and 8 on an electric range) and add all vegetables and stir them around to get them coated.

3.  Put the lid on the pan for about 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes to keep everything even.

4.  Test carrots for doneness.  You should be able to easily pierce them with a fork.

5.  If you want more than broth, turn off the heat and sprinkle the optional flour over the vegetables.  Stir it in.

Part Four: Broth and Throwing it All Together
16 cups Chicken broth (preferably made from chicken base), divided
1 T black pepper

1.  Whisk up 8 cups of broth and put it into the big pot.  You're ALMOST DONE.  :)

2.  If thickening with flour, stir in vegetables and stir everything up really well.  Bring to a boil.

3.  Simmer for a few minutes.

4.  Add noodles, potatoes, meat and another 8 cups of broth.

2.  Heat everything through for about 5 minutes.

CAUTION: If you leave noodles in the soup, they will continue to expand!!  Most reasonable adults will add the noodles right before eating, or what I do is reheat individual portions in the microwave.  Proceed at your own risk.

I'm making this for our get-together tomorrow, so I will reheat the broth/vegetables tomorrow... and after it's hot, add the noodles, potatoes and chicken.  I'll heat it through and then RUN over to the church.  :)

Fab Grilled Chicken

I went to my friend's house Saturday and she prepared the yummiest chicken!  She marinated it, then grilled it outside, then kept it warm in the oven, covered with aluminum foil.  I got her to send her recipe to me and I'm posting it for everyone who can find it. :)

1 fryer chicken
1 medium onion
1 head of garlic
1 bouquet of fresh parsley
1 bouquet of green onions
powdered red pepper
salt & pepper
1 cube Chicken bouillon
Vinegar

1.  Wash all ingredients (except chicken, vinegar, salt!) and then crush in a blender.

2.  Wash and cut up chicken pieces (leg, breasts, drumstick, etc.).  Rinse pieces with vinegar and then sprinkle with salt.

3.  Spread crushed marinade over chicken and let rest 15 minutes.

4.  Grill chicken on pre-heated grill.  What my friend did is braise the chicken on the grill (just get the OUTSIDE cooked and browned on a HOT grill) and then tuck the covered chicken into the oven on 200* until it was cooked thoroughly.  Either way, YUM!

400 Best-Ever Recipes: Fat Free, Low Fat

I am on a fairly strict no-dairy, no-fat diet now that I've been having issues with my gall bladder.  I have had to take several old recipes and take out all of the good stuff and substitute fat-free or very low-fat wherever I can.  So when I saw the book, 400 Best-Ever Recipes: Fat Free, Low Fat, by Anne Sheasby, I was SO EXCITED.

There's a problem though.  And it seems to be a broken record from nearly ALL of my other cookbook reviews.  THE RECIPES ARE TOO FANCY!!!  I do NOT keep fennel, sunflower margarine, or ground lemon grass on hand!  I do not keep cooking wines around the house, just because I wouldn't use them often enough (and my husband doesn't like the idea of cooking wine... but then again, he doesn't like the idea of using curry, either!).  There was one recipe in the beginning of the book that called for THREE red peppers.  What kind of a budget would I have to have to make things like are in this book!

Okay, here are the good things.  PICTURES.  Beautiful PICTURES.  I am very visual, and love a good picture.  It looks to me like ALL of the dishes have at least one picture taken... and many of them have some in-between-step pictures included. 

If I had a larger food budget and a family who were interested in the more "fancy" foods, this book would be an AMAZING find.  Unfortunately, we're simple folk who need to reduce our fat intake and this book just isn't for us.  If YOU like fancier foods, you might want to take a more in-depth look.  I found a couple of soups that I copied down, but maybe you'll find much more. :)

Vicky Lansky's Kids Cooking

A cookbook review!  We had this one on our shelves.  My three-year-old was napping (on my bedroom floor!) and my five-year-old wanted to hang out.  So we pulled out some cookbooks that had the word "kids" in the title.  He settled on Vicky Lansky's Kids Cooking...  And we made some... cookies... that appear to be of the oatmeal variety.  I can't have any... because of health issues, I've had to swear off almost all fat, and almost all milk.  So when these cookies came out SWIMMING in butter (they were VERY easy to remove from the pan......), there was no way.

The book LOOKS like it would be fantastic.  There are a few pages up front with pictures of things kids could make, and it includes the page number.  Also, the words are easy-to-read.  Scotty did just fine reading through the instructions (except for the word, "margarine"), BUT.  And this is big.  It doesn't matter how good the book is for kids, or how many up front pictures there are if the one recipe we try comes out as greasy as this.  Gross.

So this cookbook is a NO-GO.  Especially since it's listed new on Amazon for some $36.  That must be somebody's idea of a joke. ;)

Best Ever Banana Cake

The last couple of times I baked this cake, I don't think it baked long enough!  So today is the last attempt at making this promising recipe, and what do you know, it turned out brilliantly!
Preheat: 275*
Category: Dessert, cake, bananas, PICTURES

1 1/2 cups bananas, mashed, ripe  (I had four bananas READY for use, so I used all four)
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoons salt
3/4 cup butter, softened (I accidently left this out!  I found it in the microwave when I went to soften the frosting butter!!!!  Oops!)
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (I substituted 1 1/2 cups skim milk + 2 t. vinegar, letting it sit for 10 min.)

2 1/8 cups sugar

3 cups flour

1.  Preheat the oven.

2.  Great and flour a 9x13 pan.  Or do like I did, Miss Fancypants herself, and use two 9" circle pans.  :)  I just sprayed it and it came out just fine.

3.  Mix banana with lemon juice; set aside.  I didn't bother reading directions.  I literally dumped everything in, flour last, and then poured the batter into the pans.  But I'll tell you what the recipe says to do just in case.

4.  Mix butter and sugar; beat until light and fluffy.

5.  Mix in baking soda, salt, flour, alternating with buttermilk.

6.  Beat eggs, then add one at a time.  Add vanilla.

7.  Stir in banana mixture.

8.  Bake for 1 - 1 1/2 hours, until a toothpick comes out clean.  Remember what I said about having problems with this recipe?  I didn't just use the toothpick test, I also tested it for LOOKING done.  I let it get a little more brown, taking probably 1 hour and 10 minutes.

9.  Put directly into freezer for 45 minutes.  Apparently this step makes the cake incredibly moist.  :)  I do it, but I don't guess you have to.  The nice thing is that when you pull it out of the freezer, it's all ready to frost AND the cake has separated from the sides of the cake pan so it's easy to remove.

10.  Frost on a cool cake.  I used a sour cream frosting.  I wanted to use, as you probably would want to use too, a cream cheese frosting.  But we're out of sour cream and are not going shopping until tomorrow.   :)  Here's the frosting recipe that comes with the cake, in case you're interested:  1/2 cup butter, softened, 8 oz. cream cheese, softened, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 3 1/2 cup powdered or icing sugar.

The French Women Don't Get Fat Cookbook

Title: The French Women Don't Get Fat Cookbook
Author: Mireille Guillano
Copyright: 2010
Publisher: Atria Books, A Division of Simon & Schuster
Pages: 298, including your obligatory italicized French words, and an index.

I've been lax in posting reviews; after finding the Food Nanny cookbook that had so many great recipes (that I'm STILL trying!!!), I haven't had motivation to find new cooking fodder.  I was poking around for French stuff for my kids (we homeschool) with French as the keyword, and LOOK at what I found.  Of COURSE I ordered it through the library.  I've been low-energy (ha ha, you can tell because I haven't posted hardly ANY recipes!!!) but the book is due this coming Thursday... I guess it's TIME.  :D.

Things I Like About This Book:
Well.  I like that there's an index.  I like that there are many recipes to choose from.  I like the idea that if I eat moderately what's in this cookbook that I could (finally!!!) lose weight.  The book is chic with modern illustrations. 

I liked the food she put into context.  She said that probably the two most unhealthy foods are doughnuts and bagels... and with bagels, we load them with cream cheese, sometimes jam.  We have cut doughnuts almost completely out of our diet (I have to say "almost" because my sister-in-law brought some homemade doughnuts over and we devoured them!!).  Bagels, we don't eat very often.  I like that she advocates eating breakfast, and that it be a balanced meal.  We don't just eat carbohydrates and call it good.  We need to have protein, maybe some fruit. 

This leads to the ONE recipe we might use, Magical Breakfast Cream.  It's healthy, it's complete, and it looks yummy, in spite of the flaxseed oil! :D

Things I Don't Like About This Book.
Man cannot live by modern illustrations alone.  I liked one recipe and the rest were too fancy for me.  Behold some recipe titles:

Fusilli with Spinach and Anchovies
Beet and Ginger Gazpacho
Carmelized Chicken with Vegetable "Pancake"
Prosciutto Wrapped Around Grissini
Mackeral with Curry and Leeks

I can't imagine my husband's face if I were to tell him we were eating "Prosciutto Wrapped Around Grissini!"  Maybe if we were fancier folk.  I am seeing a pattern to my cookbook reviews........  if it's too fancy, it's OUT.  :) 

Magical Breakfast Cream

This is borrowed from The French Women Don't Get Fat Cookbook.  :)  I like the idea of the recipe.  It's simple and so healthful!
Preheat: --
Category: Breakfast, yogurt

1 serving
4-6 Tablespoons Yogurt (about 1/2 cup)
1 teaspoon flaxseed oil
1-2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon honey
2 Tablespoons finely ground cereal with zero sugar
2 teaspoons finely ground walnuts

1.  Combine yogurt and oil, mixing well. 
2.  Add the lemon juice, mixing well.
3.  Add the honey and mix well.
4.  Finely ground the cereal and walnuts, then add and mix well.
5.  Serve immediately.