Sassy Priscilla

A Better Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe

If my USB cord connection for my camera worked, I'd have a lovely picture of homemade chicken noodle soup. You'll just have to do with my lovely harvest of Music Garlic last summer. We are using the last bulb now. Guess who forgot to plant garlic last fall? Big mistake. It has been excellent.

Here's a link to the buttermilk biscuits I made to go with the soup. Sassy Priscilla, why do you accidentally knock lamps and small children over with your hips? Ha! In attempt to get in control of my weight I only ate 2 biscuits.

I got the chicken soup stock recipe from Martha Stewart's January issue. I never knew it was so easy. However, with the homemade noodles, biscuits, and broth, be prepared to spend about 2 hours in the kitchen. That is OK because you can get your dishes put away, clean the next load and dream about your garden, and kick yourself for forgetting to plant garlic.

The noodle recipe is from AllRecipes. I don't know how to make vegetable stock yet. I bet Scott does. Scott and his family are vegetarians and he always has great green tips on his website. He has helped inspire me to be more conscious of my eating. It probably doesn't sound that way with my biscuit recipe and animal eating. But I've made quite an effort to think about what goes in our bodies and have eliminated corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils. We use BPA-free storage containers and I have found strained tomatoes in glass. I'm doing my best within our budget to buy organic. Aidan and I have always been good fruit and vegetable eaters and we are now working on Jeff. 

I'm going to be working on getting rid of soy next. When Aidan was an infant, he was allergic to dairy so I had to cut dairy and soy out of my diet for about a year because I was breastfeeding. I dropped a lot of weight. It could have been the dairy/soy elimination, it could have been the extra calories needed for breastfeeding, it could have been the stress of 3 heart surgeries for Aidan in 6 months. I'm guessing a combination. I gained all the weight back and then some and I wasn't a waif to begin with. So a change needs to happen.

Oh shoot, where was I? Noodles. Soup base. These noodles will be great in your favorite soup base - be it animal stock or vegetable. Add your favorite soup vegetables, use your favorite seasoning. I've just included our favorites and the template for how to make everything. Don't mess with the chicken, water or salt. Play around with any of the other ingredients. 

This makes enough soup to feed us 3, a couple lunches for me and some to freeze. Plus, you will have leftover chicken for another meal. Speaking of that, does anyone have a good recipe for leftover dark meat chicken?

Fat Tuesday Dish - Blackened Cajun Chicken

Sorry for the lack of picture. My night food pictures just do not turn out well. I served a Fat Tuesday meal tonight because I'm making stuffed pizza tomorrow. No reason for the switcheroo except Jeff won't be home until late tonight. I did not make the intended King Cake because I heard it isn't that awesome (dry). Is that true?

If you get Penzey's catalog, you will find a coupon for a free spice. This month's spice is Cajun Seasoning. Looking for a way to cook it, I used this recipe as a guideline on how to make Blackened Cajun Chicken.

The chicken turned out excellent - real moist and delicious. I think I'm going to find a way to blacken a butterflied chicken (hammered thin) that can be used for sandwiches with some cuban rolls. Cajun and Cuban together? Oh yeah - it will be excellent! I served this chicken with some brown rice and glazed carrots. This meal was enough to feed 4 people.

A few things I did different from the original recipe besides using a pre-made spice: I oiled the breasts with Canola oil (olive oil has a low smoking point) and baked at 350 degrees for 25 minutes rather than the recommended 5 minutes. I don't know about you, but I don't really like raw chicken. I thought I was going to put the cast iron skillet into the oven from the stovetop but the skillet was smoking like crazy (unfiltered Camels). Seriously, it was open the windows and turn on the fans smoking. Maybe I need to season the skillet again.

Blackened Cajun Chicken
modified from AllRecipes

Ingredients
Penzey's Cajun Seasoning
2 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
Vegetable Oil (I used Canola Oil)

Special Tool
Cast Iron Skillet

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. While pre-heating, take your chicken breasts out of the fridge. Now's not the time to be cooking direct from the freezer. Line a baking pan or baking sheet with parchment paper or coat with a little oil. Put your cast iron skillet on the burner and set it to high 5 minutes before you are ready to begin seasoning. 

Lightly oil your chicken breasts on both sides. Liberally season your chicken breast with the Cajun Seasoning. Rub it in. Turn the chicken over and season again. Rub it in. Wash your hands very well. Twice.

Place your chicken breasts in the hot skillet. Count to 60 and turn them over. Count to 60 again.

Place your chicken breasts in your baking pan or baking sheet and put in the oven. Bake until the juices run clear - about 25 minutes.

Serve with your favorite sides.

Enjoy!

Sassy Priscilla's Excellent Crockpot Chicken Noodle Soup

This is the most delicious soup I have ever had. It is even better the second day. I will try to add a picture soon. We've had a few blustery days here in Wisconsin and this soup will warm you right up! I used lovage and herbs from my garden and it felt so good to do so!

Sassy Priscilla's Excellent Crockpot Chicken Noodle Soup

Ingredients

3 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
6-7 cups of water
Penzey's Chicken Soup Base (or your favorite soup base)
2 whole carrots, pealed and chopped into rounds
 Any other vegetable you enjoy
Handful of fresh chopped Lovage or chopped celery
*Sprigs of thyme, sage, and oregano or marjoram
*2 teaspoons ground ginger
Ground pepper to taste
Egg noodles (homemade - easier than you think and see recipe below, or packaged) 

*If you don't have fresh herbs, use poultry seasoning instead of asterisked ingredients

Directions 

Add everything but the noodles to your crockpot and set it to cook on low. The chicken should be cooked in 5-7 hours. When the chicken is cooked, take two forks and shred the chicken.

Cook your egg noodles separately and add to your crockpot chicken soup. Enjoy with some Beer Batter Bread or another crusty bread. It is an awesome dinner on a blustery day.

Egg Noodles
from All Recipes

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 pinch salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon butter

Directions

1. In a large bowl, stir together the flour and salt. Add the beaten egg, milk, and butter. Knead dough until smooth, about 5 minutes. Let rest in a covered bowl for 10 minutes.
2. On a floured surface, roll out to 1/8 or 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into desired lengths and shapes.
3. Allow to air dry before cooking.
4. To cook fresh pasta, in a large pot with boiling salted water cook until al dente.

How to Perfectly Hard Boil an Egg *

Are your hard-boiled egg yolks too green? Well, they are overcooked. How about a dark yellow? Then they are undercooked. Want to do it perfect? It is perfectly easy.

I'm pretty sure I learned this from Southern Living so don't be thinking I'm all genius.

How to Perfectly Hard Boil an Egg*
*My apologies to Scott in case you are a vegan

1. Put your eggs in a pan that you have a cover for. Cover eggs with water an inch over the tops of the eggs.
2. Put your burner on high. When the water begins to boil, remove eggs from heat, and cover with the pan's lid. Set your timer for 12 minutes
3. Now pay attention - this is where perfection comes in. When your timer goes off, empty the water from the pan, put cold water on top and let eggs soak in the cold water for a few minutes.
4. Crack and peel your eggs starting at the large end. Eat.

What's for Dinner? Tzatziki Recipe

Here is a reprint of a post I did last year when no one read my blog. It is what we are having for dinner to dip vegetables in and accompany our Greek chicken so I thought I would share again. Or maybe I'm too lazy to post something new.

This is a recipe I posted on the Stonyfield Farm website in their Recipes section.  If you aren't familiar with Stonyfield Farm yogurt, you really should get acquainted. It is the best yogurt I have ever tasted. The Fat Free Vanilla is wonderful with strawberries or when making smoothies. 

Straining the yogurt separates the curds from the whey and the curds become yogurt cheese.  Miss Muffet, anyone?

Tzatziki

This traditional Greek sauce can be used as a topping for your meat dishes, as a vegetable and chip dip, on bread and more! It is very refreshing and healthy. With a little planning and almost no work, this sauce is perfect to bring to your next picnic or good to sneak when you have a late night craving.

Ingredients
16 oz Stonyfield Farm Fat Free Plain Yogurt
1 Medium Cucumber
1-2 Cloves of Garlic, minced
Splash of Lemon Juice
Salt
Pepper

Directions
Line a colander with a coffee filter or cheese cloth. Set colander in a large bowl so that it doesn't touch the bottom. You are straining the yogurt to make it nice and thick.

Add yogurt to filter-lined colander. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge. Leave at least 1 hour--overnight would be better.

Peel the cucumber. You may leave a little skin on for color--peel it like your friend with no kitchen skills would. Half the cucumber and scrape out seeds with a spoon. Chop or grate the cucumber fine. A food processor works great and saves you even more time.

Remove yogurt from colander--it should be nice and thick. Place in bowl and discard coffee filter unless you are the type to re-use those things. Place chopped cucumber in colander to let drain. It may take a little squeezing to remove water from the cucumber. To the yogurt, add minced garlic to taste. I use 1 clove. My sister would use 10 cloves if you let her. Add splash of lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste.

Add drained cucumber to yogurt mix and eat immediately or chill. Ponder how quick that was (except for the whole overnight thing). Sit back and commend yourself for making a healthy, yummy dip. Unless you ate it all yourself in one sitting.

Yields
Enough dip for a party or meal

Ingredients
16 oz Stonyfield Farm Fat Free Plain Yogurt
1 Medium Cucumber
1-2 Cloves of Garlic, minced
Splash of Lemon Juice
Salt
Pepper

Directions
Line a colander with a coffee filter or cheese cloth. Set colander in a large bowl so that it doesn't touch the bottom. You are straining the yogurt to make it nice and thick.

Add yogurt to filter-lined colander. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge. Leave at least 1 hour--overnight would be better.

Peel the cucumber. You may leave a little skin on for color--peel it like your friend with no kitchen skills would. Half the cucumber and scrape out seeds with a spoon. Chop or grate the cucumber fine. A food processor works great and saves you even more time.

Remove yogurt from colander--it should be nice and thick. Place in bowl and discard coffee filter unless you are the type to re-use those things. Place chopped cucumber in colander to let drain. It may take a little squeezing to remove water from the cucumber. To the yogurt, add minced garlic to taste. I use 1 clove. My sister would use 10 cloves if you let her. Add splash of lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste.

Add drained cucumber to yogurt mix and eat immediately or chill. Ponder how quick that was (except for the whole overnight thing). Sit back and commend yourself for making a healthy, yummy dip. Unless you ate it all yourself in one sitting.

Yields
Enough dip for a party or meal

What's for Dinner? Homemade Bread Machine Pizza Dough Recipe

Here's a great, easy recipe for homemade bread machine pizza dough that, from start to finish, takes about 2 hours.  This dough can be made in advance and refrigerated or frozen.

Also included are my tips for using your machine's timed setting, making the dough pliable, storing your yeast, and adding a sourdough starter.  Sorry for the picture quality. It is a dark, rainy day.

Bread Machine Pizza Dough
3/4 c + 2 T Warm Water   
3/4 t Salt   
2 T Olive Oil   
2 1/2 c All Purpose Flour
2 t Sugar
2 t Active Dry Yeast

Use your dough setting on the bread machine. Set your stove timer to alert you about 10 minutes before your dough setting completes (mine is 90 minutes). When your timer goes off, preheat your oven to 400 degrees and start your sauce.*  Pat dough on a greased pizza pan and let stand for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, pat dough again on pan (you’ll notice it is more pliable now) and spread your sauce and put toppings on. Bake for 15-20 minutes until crust is golden brown.

If you are using a timed setting, I recommend putting in your water and oil first, then your dry ingredients, saving your yeast for LAST. If you are processing right away, add your yeast to your water and let sit for a minute or so. Then add your dry ingredients.  I buy my yeast in a jar and store it in the fridge.

If you have a sourdough starter, add 1 cup of starter, reduce flour to 2 cups, and reduce water to 1/4 c plus 2 T.

*For sauce, I use a can of tomato puree, Penzey’s pizza sauce seasoning and a clove of garlic, minced.  I usually have enough for two pizzas (or almost two pizzas as sometimes happens).

To freeze your dough, wrap it in plastic wrap and then put it in a baggie or wrap in freezer paper. To use, let the dough thaw 24 hours in the fridge, leaving your wrap loose as the dough will rise. About 30 minutes before you want to use it, take it out of the fridge and put on your greased pizza pan. Let it rise for 20 minutes. Press into pan, let sit for 10 minutes. Pat dough again and bake as instructed.

Bossy Bean Soup Part II

Since it was so good, I made Bossy Bean Soup Slowly Cooked again this past weekend. This time I made it with bacon sent to us by Uncle Doug. 

I read that you should put the items that cook the slowest at the bottom of the crockpot so I put the carrots in at the beginning. Jeff liked the soft texture better.

I think using the ham shank gave a better flavor but the bacon was pretty good, too! 

Shown left are the sparse ingredients.  In the crockpot is bouillon and garlic, just waiting for the boiling water. Stir, add the tomato puree, and then add the carrots, beans and bacon. YUM!

 

This meal made for dinner for two nights and also a couple lunches. 1 cup is 3 weight watchers points.

What's For Dinner? Bossy Bean Soup Slowly Cooked with Ham

Lousy picture. Sorry! Plus, I forgot to photograph before we started devouring it. I also forgot to make a nice bread. Oh well, it is like 5 degrees here and I can only concentrate on being warm.

Today I made up a recipe for bean soup that turned out pretty good! I just researched a few recipes online and went from there and put it in the slow-cooker for the day.

Jeff loved it and ate two bowls. I thought it was very good but might need a little herb flavor. I usually start bland as Jeff's palate is milder than mine.  Any suggestions for herbs or other add-ins?

Due to medication, Aidan and I cannot have parsley or spinach or other leafy greens. We have a serving of broccoli daily and I think chopped broccoli would be great in this dish.

The recipe is after the jump.

Blueberry Smoothie for Breakfast - Hurray!

Today we enjoyed one of our favorite breakfast treats - a blueberry smoothie topped with an umbrella straw.  It is very easy, good for you and extremely tasty.  You don't have to use the same brands and you can change the fruit.  Enjoy!

Sarah's Smashing Blueberry Smoothie

1/2 c. Dole Frozen Wild Blueberries
1 Banana
1 c. Stonyfield Farm Fat Free French Vanilla Yogurt
Splash of Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice (no pulp)
2 Dashes of Penzey's Chinese Cassia Cinnamon

Put Blueberries in blender and use the ice setting to crush. I actually add some of the yogurt on top so that the blueberries don't spray everywhere.

Break banana into 2-3 pieces and put in blender.  I use the liquefy setting.

Add rest of ingredients and blend.

Drink it all.

Here's the Scoop on the Avocado Scoop

Remember my Guacamole Recipe post?  Here is more detail on the Avocado scoop.

1. Start with a whole avocado and cut in half lengthwise. 
2. Cut around the pit and pull two halves apart.
3. Hold half in your palm (any palm readers out there?) and scoop out the goods.
4. Be amazed at how great that worked!

Holy Guacamole!

I am new to guacamole. However, since Aidan started out loving Avocado, I thought I should try it out. I can't believe how good it is. It is good for you, too.

I adapted a recipe from AllRecipes to exclude the loathed onion. Add it if you like to ruin the texture of your food. I also omitted the olive oil, added garlic and doubled the lemon juice.

I use this great tool to scoop out my avocados. You can find it at Pastry Chef or other places.  I bought mine locally. The large size can be used for melons and the small size can be used on Kiwi. There are lots of uses for them. I use the middle size on the avocado - I slicedit in half, cutting around the seed. I pull the pieces apart, pick out the seed and then scoop the goods out of the skin. No goods are wasted.

Scrumptious Guacamole
2 Haas Avocados - ripe but not mushy
1 Lemon (I used Meier)
1 Large Clove of Garlic (or 2 medium ones)
Salt
Pepper

Mash avocados in small bowl with a fork until chunky but not creamy. Mince your garlic and add. Squeeze juice of entire lemon and stir. Season with salt and pepper to taste. I'm a little generous with the salt.  You can add chopped tomato or any other ingredient to suit your taste.

It keeps nicely because of the lemon juice.

Serves 16.

You can half the recipe and use the other half of the lemon to make lemon water. Eat with chips or vegetables (crudite, as Martha would say).

Kettle Corn. Um, Kettle YUM.

I found this Kettle Corn Recipe on the My Business is to Create blog. No, my popcorn is not burnt. I used black seeds.  They make for a tinier, delicate kernel. Yellow would probably be better for this recipe but the empty bowl doesn't care anymore.  Next time I will pop less corn so there is more to coat the popcorn. Delicious!

Kettle Corn

Bowl full of popcorn (6-8 cups)
2 T Vegetable Oil
2 T water
2/3 c light brown sugar

Put oil, water, and brown sugar in a small sauce pan. Stir and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium and simmer 3 minutes.  Remove from heat and pour over the popcorn. Stir very well and salt as normal (important step!).

Eat.

The recipe on the Business blog has more explicit instructions for making popcorn and also includes nice pictures.

Tzatziki Anyone? Great Recipe for Cucumber Dip

This is a recipe I posted on the Stonyfield Farm website in their Recipes section.  If you aren't familiar with Stonyfield Farm yogurt, you really should get acquainted. It is the best yogurt I have ever tasted. The Fat Free Vanilla is wonderful with strawberries or when making smoothies. 

I'll post a picture tomorrow as I'm straining the yogurt tonight.  Update - I've added a picture. The cucumbers are a bit chunky as I chopped by hand rather than use the food processor. However, I have tested and approved. Yum.

Straining the yogurt separates the curds from the whey and the curds become yogurt cheese.  Miss Muffet, anyone?

Recipe after the jump.