Hearty Chicken Noodle Soup

Hearty Chicken Noodle Soup

Mikael brought this to Souper Saturday.  It is from one of the Lion House Cookbooks with a few slight alterations.  My Mom has been making this for years and it is always a hit.

1 1/2 T. Chicken Soup Base (by the boillion)  (Macey's carries it...I will post a pic below)
3 C. Chicken soup stock (by the broth) (I will post a pic below) (I think you could use broth, but it just wouldn't be quite as strong?!?!?!?!)
2 C. chopped carrots (I used the already cut shoestring carrots to save time cutting and cooking...but you can chop them yourself if desired) (1 (10.5 oz) bag of shoestring carrots is 3 1/2 C.)
2 C. chopped celery (I used a mandolin to slice them thin...to save time cutting and cooking)
3/4 C. chopped onion (I used yellow) (It is about 1/2 of a large yellow onion)
2 Cans (10.5 oz each) cream of chicken soup
1/4 C. evaporated milk or 1/2 C. whole milk (I have used skim before)
Roux (see recipe below) (see picture below)
2 C. frozen peas (optional)
2 C. diced cooked chicken
2 1/2 oz (about 4 C.) cooked noodles (I like the homemade style from Maceys...found by the regular noodles)
Pepper to taste

Heat soup base, and stock together.  Add vegetables except peas.  Simmer until vegetables are tender.  Add cream of chicken soup and milk.  Thicken with roux as desired, then add cooked chicken and noodles.  Add pepper to taste.  Makes about 2 1/2 quarts, or 10 (1 cup) servings.  Took me about 1 3/4 hours from start to finish to make.  Not including thawing chicken, but yes including cooking chicken and cooking noodles.

Chicken base

Chicken stock

Roux
Roux is used to thicken the soup.  The amount used depends on individual taste.  I used about 3/4 of the recipe of roux.
Melt 1/2 C. butter in frying pan.  Whisk in 1 C. flour.  Whisk until blended, it will be clumpy.  Store in the refrigerator.  When ready to use, add it to your hot soup a little at a time until you reach your desired consistency.

This is what the roux looks like

Easy peasy potato soup

From Shannon A.

1 30oz. bag of frozen, shredded hash browns {I used Ore Ida}

3 14oz. cans of chicken broth

1 can of cream of chicken soup

1/2 cup onion, chopped

1/4 tsp. ground pepper

1 pkg. cream cheese {don’t use fat free. It WON’T melt!!!}

In a crockpot, combine everything EXCEPT for the cream cheese. Cook for 6-8 hours on low heat. About 1 hour before serving, add cream cheese and keep heated until thoroughly melted. Serve with cheese, sour cream, bacon bits, green onions, or whatever else you think would be good!!
**EASY, DELICIOUS and AMAZING!

Aunt Olive's Soup

I brought this to Souper Saturday yesterday.  Aunt Olive was my Grandma's older sister.  So this recipe has made it through several generations of my family.  The way this recipe was handed down to me was that you make huge batches and bottle them.  A few years ago I experimented with it and made the recipe smaller so you could just make 1 dinner.  I will include both recipes.  It has basically the same ingredients as salsa...so you can grow the same items in your garden.  Sister Dabb has a really similar recipe (the larger canning version), but she does not put the noodles in before canning.  There are advantages to this...you could then use rice or noodles and the noodles don't take up space in your jars.  But the advantage to having the noodles already in the soup are that it makes it easier to open up and have a quick dinner.  I have listed spicy sausage to add...but you could alternately add ground beef or ground turkey or shredded or cubed chicken.  It is also good without meat.  We were brainstorming yesterday and saying it would be good with beans in it also...but I have never tried that.  Please note that the  bottling methods listed have not been approved by the Utah State Extension Office...they are just what my family has always done.

This is the bottling recipe...

1/2 bushel tomatoes

1/4 C. salt

1 C. sugar

1 tsp. pepper

9 C. macaroni (cooked and drained)

3 large bell peppers, diced

1 bunch celery, diced

5 medium onions, diced

1/2 lb. of real butter

Melt butter in large frying pan add vegetables.  Saute until light brown and fully cooked.

Peel tomatoes (can blanch if desired).  Cut into small pieces or blend in blender.

Fully cook macaroni (do not overcook).

Combine all ingredients except macaroni and boil hard for 15 minutes.  Add hot (and drained) macaroni).

Put in bottles.  Process in water bath.  Pints 20 minutes, Quarts 25 minutes.

Makes about 35 pints.

When serving, if desired, you can add any of the following: sausage, hamburger, chicken, cheese.  I also think it is too thick when I open a jar so I will blend a bottle of tomatoes and add that in.

Here is the 1 dinner recipe...

10 tomatoes peeled and blended in blender, OR 2 quarts of bottled tomatoes (with a possibility of 3 total).  If you do fresh tomatoes you may want to have 1 jar of bottled tomatoes on hand just in case it is too thick.

1 T. salt

3 T. sugar

quite a bit of pepper

2 1/2 C. macaroni (or other noodles), cooked and drained

1 bell pepper, any color

2 ribs celery, diced

1 medium yellow onion diced

2 T. oil or butter  (add more if vegetables start to stick while sauteing)

1 tube Jimmy Dean Hot Sausage (by the hot dogs)

1.  To peel the tomatoes you cna blanch them first to make it easier.

2.  Saute vegetables until lightly browned and cooked through.  

3.  Brown meat, drain if desired (I did not for Souper Saturday...but sometimes I do).

4.  Cook noodles through and drain

5.  Combine all ingredients

6.  Boil hard 15 minutes

7.  If not soupy enough when done, add blended up jar of bottled tomatoes.  And heat through.

Instead of the hot sausage you can do hamburger or chicken if desired.  And instead of noodles you can do cooked rice if desired.

If you double this recipe it will completely fill a large crockpot.

Easy Crockpot Fiesta Chicken

Makes  5 cups.  Serves 4-6.

4 chicken breasts (I did 1 lb.)

15.5 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed

15 oz frozen or canned corn, if canned then drain first

15 oz salsa (I did ½ hot and ½ mild and it was a little too spicy…so maybe medium and mild or just mild)

8 oz cream cheese

Take 4 frozen or thawed chicken breasts and put into crock pot.  Add remaining ingredients except cream cheese.  Cook on low for 4-5 hours.  Remove chicken and shred it with 2 forks.  Put chicken back in crock pot.  Add cream cheese, just put it on top.  It will look a little weird at this point.  Let it cook for another ½ hour.  Then stir in the cream cheese and serve over rice or in tortillas.  Recipe from recipezaar.com

Crockpot mexican chicken

I am on a crockpot spree trying to find healthy easy yummy crockpot meals that my family (AKA kids) like also.  Here is really good one I got from my former college roommate.

Crockpot Mexican Chicken

Serves 4-6

4 chicken breasts

2 C. salsa

2 package taco seasoning

Cook on low in crockpot for 4-5 hours on low.  Remove chicken and shred with 2 forks.  Return chicken to crock pot.  Serve in tortillas, over taco salad, on nachos, over rice, quesadillas, etc…

I did 1 C. mild salsa and 1 C. medium salsa and it was perfect.  But if you don't like spicy things then just stick with mild salsa all around.

Parmesan Chicken

This recipe is taken from an old ward cookbook from K. Dabb

4 chicken boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed
1/2 C. melted butter
1 C. Bread crumbs (I usually use italian)
1/2 C. parmesan (I just use the cheap green can stuff)
1/2 C. Shredded cheese
2 tsp. basil
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper (I use coarse)

Dip cubed chicken in melted butter.  In separate bowl combine rest of ingredients.  Roll chicken in dry ingredients.  Place chicken on a cookie sheet.  Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes.

California Chicken (Chicken Marinade)

1 C. canola oil
3/4 C. soy sauce
1/2 C. lemon juice
1/4 C. worcestershire sauce
1/4 C. prepared mustard
2 tsp. pepper
6 garlic cloves, smashed through a garlic press (or 3 tsp. minced garlic from a bottle)

Mix all ingredients.  Place 6-8 trimmed boneless skinless chicken breasts in marinade.  Place marinade and chicken in a gallon size ziploc (or cover top of bowl with saran).  Refrigerate overnight (I did mine for about 10 hours and it was great, but you could do a full 24 hours).  Grill on the BBQ on low or medium.  Turn every 5 minutes until cooked through.  Throw the marinade out.  The chicken had good flavor and was really moist.

Easier garlic bread

Rather than cutting up your whole loaf of french bread and buttering each piece individually, this is how I do it...(and yes, I learned it from my Mom...thanks Mom!)...


Slice your loaf open the long way (into 2 big pieces).  Butter both sides and garlic salt.  Then broil with the butter facing up.

After toasting (broiling), put the loaf back together...

Now cut them into as wide of slices as you desire (these ones were thin).  (You will be cutting 2 slices at he same time)...

There you go...faster easier...practically the same result...

Creamy Potato Leek Soup

(Photocopied without permission from All Recipes.com)

I had never tried Leeks before, but I got some from a food co-op and so we tried this recipe.  I have made it 2 or 3 times now and everyone in my family loves it.  The leeks are just like a mild green onion.

8 cups potatoes, peeled and cubed
4 cups chicken broth (or 4 cups water and 4 chicken boiullion cubes)
1 pound bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces, reserve bacon grease
3 leeks, sliced
1 C. heavy cream

In a large stockpot cook potatoes in the chicken broth until potatoes are tender.

Meanwhile cook bacon until brown (cut bacon into 1 inch squares before or after cooking...I do it after).  Drain grease but keep 3 T. bacon grease and set aside.

Wash and cut the leeks like this video.  You need to cut and wash them a certain way because they are really dirty inside.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm6XGDwjJQA

Saute the leeks in the reserved bacon grease for 8-10 minutes.

Once the potatoes are tender, stir in the fried leeks, heavy cream and bacon.

Wah-lah!

I got the recipe from here http://allrecipes.com/recipe/creamy-potato-leek-soup-ii/detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Title&e11=creamy%20potato%20leek%20soup%20ii&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Home%20Page

Spaghetti Squash Yum!

This recipe was sitting out on the RS table...I don't know where it came from, but thought I'd share it with you!

1 spaghetti squash
2 T. olive oil
1 white onion, chopped
1 1/2 C. chopped vine tomatoes
1 clove garlic, minced
3/4 feta cheese
3 T. black olives
2 T. chopped fresh basil

Cook squash in oven with water until tender (350 degrees).

Heat oil in skillet and cook onions until tender.  Add garlic and cook for 3 more minutes.  Stir in tomatoes.

Put everything together in a large bowl and toss.

Serve warm.

Biscuits

These were amazing.  I have tried probably 5 different biscuit recipes and can finally end my search.

Makes 6 grand sized biscuits

2 C. flour

1 T. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 T.  White Sugar

1/3 C. shortening

1 C. milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Cut in the shortening until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Gradually stir in milk until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl (you might not need all of the milk).
3. Turn out onto a floured surface, and knead 15 to 20 times--do not over-knead. Pat or roll dough out to 1 inch thick. Cut biscuits with a large cutter or juice glass dipped in flour. Repeat until all dough is used. Brush off the excess flour, and place biscuits onto an ungreased baking sheet.
4. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges begin to brown.
5. These were 8 Weight Watchers points plus each--Ouch!  But oh so yummy!
6. The recipe was taken from Allrecipes.com called "J.P.'s Big Daddy Biscuits"    http://allrecipes.com/recipe/jps-big-daddy-biscuits/

Teriyaki Sauce

This is a nice thick teriyaki sauce. 

1/4 C. soy sauce
1 c. water
1/2 tsp ground ginger (I used the dried spice kind...not fresh)
1/4 tsp garlic powder
5 Tablespoons packed brown sugar (I reduced it to 1/4 C. which is 4 T just to lower the sugar content and it tasted great)
1-2 T. honey (I missed this when I was reading the recipe---So I didn't add this either)
2 T. cornstarch
1/4 C. cold water

Mix all but cornstarch and 1/4 C. cold water.  Heat until boiling.  Reduce heat.  Mix cornstarch and water separately.  Add corstarch to 1st mixture and heat until thick.

Easy/Healthy Pumpkin Cake/Cookies/Brownies

15 oz. Pumpkin (you can use pumpkin pie if desired...but just pumpkin is healthier and tastes great)
1 cake mix (Spice cake is really good...but you can use others)

Do not add the oil/eggs/water called for in the cake.  Just mix the above 2 ingredients together.  Spread in a pan for brownies/cake or drop by spoonfuls for cookies, or put in muffin papers for muffins.  Bake according to cake box directions until toothpick comes out clean.  You can also add chocolate chips to the batter if desired.  It is good plain, or you can top with coolwhip or applesauce.

Yummm!