Busy Night Delight

One of my very favorite things to eat is Tortilla soup.  I can always go for it, anytime of year (OK, maybe I don't crave it when it's 90 and humid but you get the idea).  I love the Pioneer Woman's Tortilla Soup a LOT.  I recommend you try it sometime.  I recently tried a Chicken Posole Stew from a website called Smockityfrocks that was really good as well.  This is really similar to the tortilla soup but instead of black beans, it has a couple of cans of hominy.  If I remember to, next time I'm going to add a can of black beans to this Posole recipe.  The best part about this new recipe is that its all done in the crock pot.  The work to prepare this is minimal.  You could throw it in before work in the morning and leave it on low all day or if you're able to do it in the afternoon, just put it on high for 4 hours.  Click the Smockityfrock link above for the full recipe but I'm going to show you just how incredibly easy this was.

Start with two bone in chicken breasts with the skin removed.  Set them in the bottom of your slow cooker.

Get a couple of cans of chicken broth, or if you're like me, thaw out some broth that you made with those super easy crock pot chickens from 100 Days of Real Food and add it to the crock pot.

OK, so here's the hard part.  You have to slice some carrots.  Yikes.  And a couple of scallions.  Oh boy.
You may need to chop a little garlic, or squish it in the garlic press, but that's it I swear.  The rest involves opening cans and seasonings.

Open a couple of cans of white hominy and rinse it well.

This is basically corn that has been dried and then treated with an alkali process of some kind.  I like how it looks like popcorn.

Next dump in some canned diced tomatoes.

Add your seasonings.  I would like to note here that the recipe calls for Mexican oregano, not sure what that is so I use regular old dried oregano.

After it cooks on high for 4 hrs or low for 7-8, take the chicken out and shred it up by pulling with a couple of forks.

Return the meat back to the stew and get your toppings ready.

I personally feel that avocado or guacamole are critical to any one of the tortilla soup/ posole recipes.  Scallions, cheese, chopped cilantro all all fantastic toppers but for me, avocado is the most important.  I like to serve it with a couple of tortilla chips as well.  Just a few to give it a nice crunch.  So even though it's pretty summery out there, we all have those crazy days when you need a dinner that's ready when you are because there's just no time to deal.  Put this one on your list, it's really good (and much better for you than going to the drive through!). Click Here for the full recipe.

Time To Lighten Up For Spring!

I thought the day would never come when I would feel spoiled by good weather!  Well, today is not one of those days but the past couple of weeks have been quite nice.  A nice dramatic shift in the weather gets me fired up for a dramatic shift in food.  We've had some 70 and 80 degree days which of course is perfect for grilling, salads and cold dishes.  I recently tried out a Citrus Rice Salad that was quite good.  I'm always looking for new tasty ways to eat brown rice because I'm just not nuts about plain o'll brown rice.  This would make a lovely dish to pass at a cookout, all fresh and springy.  This recipe is by Giada DeLaurentis.

Start by cooking your brown rice in some chicken stock.  This is always my preferred way to cook brown rice.

While the rice is cooking, toast up some sliced almonds.  I like to do mine in the toaster oven.  Keep an eye on them though, you don't want to burn them.

Also while the rice is cooking (you've got about 40 min, brown rice takes a while) make a nice vinaigrette in the blender.  This is made with fresh lemon juice, fresh OJ, soy sauce, honey, cumin, and olive oil.

When the rice is done, fluff with a fork and transfer to a serving dish. Now you're ready to fancy it up.

You'll need some zest from the lemon and the orange that you use to make the dressing.

You need to slice up some scallions.

Chop up some fresh flat leaf parsley.

And add it all to the brown rice.  This just screams spring don't you think?

Give it a good mix and toss with the dressing and toasted almonds (reserving a few for garnish).

I served this with grilled chicken and steamed broccoli.  The next day I had it for lunch with my grilled chicken shredded and mixed into to it which was really good.  You can serve this warm or at room temp. This would go great with grilled fish too.

Citrus Rice Salad with Chicken (salad by Giada DeLaurentis)

Rice Salad:

1/2 cup sliced almonds

4 cups low-sodium chicken broth

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 cups brown rice, rinsed

3/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1 medium orange, zested

1 lemon, zested

1 cup thinly sliced green onions

Vinaigrette:

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1/4 cup fresh orange juice

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (about 1 lemon)

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon honey

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Place an oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (or place on a tray in the toaster oven at 250 for 4-5 min). Arrange the almonds in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake for 5 to 6 minutes until lightly golden. Cool completely, about 15 minutes

In a medium saucepan, bring the chicken stock, salt and oil to a boil over medium-high heat Stir in the rice. Cover the saucepan, reduce the heat, and simmer until all the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is tender, about 40 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and let sit for 5 minutes. Using a fork, fluff the rice and place in a large serving bowl. Add the parsley, orange zest, half of the lemon zest, green onions, and 1/4 cup of the almonds. Toss well.

In a blender, combine the olive oil, orange juice, lemon juice, soy sauce, honey, and cumin. Blend until smooth. with salt and pepper, to taste. Pour the vinaigrette over the rice mixture and stir well. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Garnish with the remaining lemon zest and almonds.

A Big Salad? Get Real!

One of my favorite things to eat for lunch lately is a salad.  If this sounds boring to you or you think you might be really hungry if all you have is a salad for lunch, I'd say, you just need to make a better salad.  The effort it takes to throw one together is minimal.  I suggest that if you don't buy the triple washed spring mixes or something of that variety, wash your lettuce when you get it home from the store so it's clean and ready to go when you want it.  I'm definitely guilty of forgoing a salad because I didn't feel like dealing with washing lettuce and it being all wet or getting out the salad spinner and blah blah blah.  Do it when you have the time and its done. Simple.  If your salad is going to be your whole meal, make it substantial.

Add leftover steak or chicken, you don't need much when you're tossing it with all kinds of veggies, nuts, seeds, fruit and or cheese.  What you don't want to do is go out and buy a big salad loaded with sodium and calories like those sited in this article 20 Salads worse than a Whopper from Men's Health.  Holy cow! If you think you're eating smart when you order one of these big salads you're in for a big surprise.  Applebee's has a Grilled Shrimp and Spinach salad that has 1010 calories and 2650mg of sodium! Whaaaat?  The Oriental Chicken salad has less sodium but even more calories.  I'm not going to list them all, you can see them for yourself in the link but I do feel the need to mention the Cheesecake Factory has a Santa Fe salad with 1720 calories and the worst on the list was the Santa Fe salad at T.G..I Friday's with 1830 calories!!! That's pretty much what I eat in a day...and I eat quite a bit of food!

You want something Santa Fe ish? Lettuce, tomato, avocado, fresh cilantro, a little cheddar cheese will be fantastic.  Add a couple of ounces of chicken dress it with a little olive oil and a squeeze of lime and you've got one fantastic salad at around 400 calories and no added sodium.

Add a couple of slices of deli turkey and some almonds to a salad mix things up a bit.  Fresh dill or basil go a long way in creating big flavor in a big salad and far less damaging than a fatty, MSG ridden salad dressing.

Having fresh herbs is a great way to flavor all kinds of food not just salads.  Again, wash them when you get them home and then store in the fridge in a plastic bag with a damp paper towel.  These are good for a week and a half easily.  Here I have dill, cilantro and parsley.

I made this one last week, 3 cups of spring mix, 2 oz ham off the bone, a carrot, half of a tomato, 3 scallions, a tablespoon of sunflower seeds, a tablespoon of crumbled bleu cheese, fresh dill and dressed with a teaspoon of olive oil and some red wine vinegar.  Delish, and coming in around 300 calories.  A hard boiled egg would have been a nice addition for 70 more calories.

I'm not normally a calorie counter but I wanted to show you the difference between those crazy restaurant salads and my super yummy also very big salads.  I have a hearty appetite and I am perfectly satisfied with this lunch.  There are so many combinations to make, add chick peas, cucumbers, strawberries or oranges.  Add meat, skip the meat, either way you can make a nice, healthy quality lunch to keep you fueled through the day.

Feta and bleu cheese are great choices because a little bit goes a long way. Add spicy peppers to keep it interesting.

It only takes a few minutes to whip one up.  Your body will thank you for staying out of the drive through!

Way Out West

It's been three weeks since I've been here rambling about what I like to eat and what I think you should try! We just returned from a lovely vacation visiting our family out west.  The week before vacation is always nutty so no blogging going on then.  Trying to tie up loose ends, pack, shop because you don't have anything to pack, and then not know what to buy because it's April and the weather is all over the place.  I have to say I scaled down my packing quite a bit and still only used half of what I brought.  I did bring lemons and cayenne with me...used all of those.  Anyway, I don't have a recipe to share today (but I do have some stockpiled, so stay tuned), but I thought I'd share some fun pictures from the trip.  A little tiny taste of the Pacific Northwest for you to enjoy.

I was really happy to see how green everything was when we arrived.  I knew it would be but it was such a nice change from our dead grass at home that had just revealed itself days before we left.

These pictures are from the driveway at my Mother-in-law's house.  My favorite dog Rufus and I walked and ran many laps up and down the quarter mile stretch while we were there.  I had to do something to cancel out all the eating out and tasty Oregon beers we were sampling. It's all about balance.

 And it did the trick, no added vacation pounds here.  Maybe that cayenne lemon water I've been drinking didn't hurt either?  Not sure but I'm sticking with it.  I just love these crazy mossy trees.

The weather was not great but not completely terrible either.  Almost every day had periods of sunshine in between total downpours.  There were blue skies...

and stormy ones too.  Even hail a couple of times.

And much like back at home, even when it's sunny, it's raining.

The kids didn't mind a bit.  They just throw on some giant rubber boots and head on down to the pond to catch (all kinds of disgusting) critters.

Supposedly this is a "baby" slug.  If you're gagging right now, I don't blame you.  So am I.

One day we headed out on a hike along the old railroad tracks that run through the property.  They haven't been used since '06 so they were pretty overgrown.  Here we get to see the front and back of Rufus at the same time, how about that.

We walked across three trestles, each one scarier than the next.  Although, Hayden didn't seem to mind.  I will say I was even more scared when I walked these things many years ago because the train was still running twice a day and I was very (even more) freaked out.

I tried my best to capture just how high up this thing was.  See that stream way down there?  It can be tricky taking pictures when your knees are knocking.

I almost lost my lunch trying to take this one.

There's something just so cool about it though, it was worth it.

You can see how they left me in the dust...Phoebe was a little scared too.

It's not a trip to the country without a couple of barn shots.  This is Grandma's barn, our kids love to hang out in Grandma's barn.  I would have too at their age.

I do love an old barn.

Not to mention an old barn and an airplane. (This is not Grandma's barn or her airplane)

We did head into Portland a few times.  In the rain...

For a giant cheeseburger and a Blazer's game! 

But we thoroughly enjoyed our own personal wildlife show right from the house...

even the elk paid us a visit (a couple of times!).

Between the wildlife, scenery, visits with friends and family

we had a really nice time.