Chicken and Kale Soup

Soup is one of those things that are so comforting on a cold winter day. It's one of my favourite things to eat too. I received my Clean Eating Magazine in the mail this week, there was a recipe for Italian Turkey soup that looked delicious. There was some ingredients in the soup that I didn't like or have so I based this recipe off of that one and made it so that it suited my tastes!

1 tbsp olive oil divided
1 large or 2 small chicken breasts or 1lb ground chicken
1 rutabaga, peeled, cut into bite size pieces
2 carrots, peeled, cut into bite size pieces
1 bunch kale, stems removed and roughly chopped
1 onion chopped
4 garlic minced
1/2 tbsp dried oregano
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tbsp dried basil
1/2 tsp salt and pepper
1 carton of chicken stock
1 big can of diced tomatoes
more salt and pepper to taste

If your using Chicken breasts, cut them in chunks, pulse in the food processor in batches, until ground but not made into a paste. Heat 1/2 tbsp olive oil in a pot, brown the ground meat. remove to a bowl. Heat the rest of the oil in the pan, add the onion and garlic, saute until softened, add the meat and juices back into the pot. Add all the spices in and  1/2 tsp salt and pepper. Stir for a couple of minutes. Add in the stock, tomatoes, and rutabaga and carrots. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Add in the kale, cover and simmer for another 20 minutes or until all the veggies are tender. Taste and add more salt and pepper if you like. I like alot of pepper.

I was able to get seven servings of this, I kept  three for the week and froze the other 4 in freezer jam jars

What I Ate Wednesday #18

It's the new year and lots of people are trying to be healthier. I was in a bit of a health slump for the months of November and December. I didn't go to the gym most of November, I think I may have gone twice, and I joined a boot camp at Healthy You Studios. The boot camp was 3x/week. I wanted to make myself go to the gym two of the other days during the week, I never made it. I did wake myself up and get to the boot camp. So January is here and I need to get back in the swing of things. I always feel healthier, physically and mentally and happier when I'm eating well and exercising. I'm not in to making resolutions, they are usually broken, then you feel guilty and disappointed in yourself and that's just not okay. So I'm getting back on track, i have been making it to the gym at least 4 days a week and planning and preparing my meals again. So here's what I ate yesterday, don't mind the horrible pictures, they are all cell phone pictures

Breakfast

One English muffin, with homemade strawberry jam on one side and natural almond butter and cinnamon on the other, two over easy eggs, two slices of nitrate free bacon and 1/4 avocado and coffee

Lunch

A spring salad with sweet onion dressing and chicken and kale soup (I'll put the recipe up when I take a better picture!)

Then I had a coffee and should have brought a snack to work but I didn't

Supper

 Baked salmon with lemon pepper seasoning and salt, creamy Parmesan sidekick, green beans sauteed in a little butter, lemon pepper seasoning and Maggi seasoning

Then I had a decaf coffee

 Snack

1/2 pear with 1 tsp walnut pieces, 1 tiny square of blue cheese crumbled, 1 tsp honey and 1/4 vanilla fat free greek yogurt with 1/4 cup blueberries and a little bit of granola

I would have only had one of these for a snack but I was so hungry, I think because I skipped the earlier snack, so I had both.

Check out some other WIAW's here!

It's been a While...

It's been quite a while since I have posted anything on here! December was crazy with the kids wrapping up school before Christmas and having every weekend in December busy. I was also sick every weekend in December. I have been trying out some recipes from Pinterest and thought that I would share some that I have really loved

Here are some of the recipes I've tried

-The Pioneer Woman's Potato Salad, I don't even like potato salad, but this I loved!

-The Pioneer Woman's Onion Blue-Cheese Sauce, this was everything I hoped it was going to be! We had steaks from the BBQ, this sauce, lobster tail, mushrooms and the mentioned above potato salad, oh and this focaccia! The focaccia is so quick and easy, the kids ate it up in no time. I don't have a stand mixer so I put in my food processor.

- I also tried this homemade artisan bread, again it was so simple to make

- Rachael Rays Swedish sailors beef is another delicious recipe. I use eye of round steaks that I halve.

- This shrimp enchilada recipe is to die for! There are a lot of steps, but it's totally worth it!

I have also made some cheese potatoes recently but forgot to take a picture. They are a recipe that my dad used to make whenever he made BBQ chicken. It was recently his birthday and in his memory, we had these potatoes with BBQ chicken, the artisan bread mentioned above and lemon meringue pie.

Cheese Potatoes

8-10 large potatoes, peeled and slices thin

1 can Campbells cheese and broccoli soup

1 can or Campbells cheddar soup

1 empty can of soup filled with milk

1 onion, thinly sliced

1 bag of shredded cheddar cheese, divided

1/2 tsp salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Mix everything, except for 1 cup of cheese, in a roasting pan or large casserole dish. Top the potatoes with the remaining cheese. Cover the potatoes and cook for 1 hour. Stir. Cover again and cook for 30 min-1 hour depending on how soft the potatoes are. Take the lid off for the last 30 min of cooking. Let it sit for 15 ish minutes before eating.

Salt Beef Dinner aka Jigg's Dinner

I love salt beef, maybe more than most people. I don't soak or pre boil my salt beef or cut any of the fat off, I love the fat. This is probably one of the most unhealthy meals I eat, because I eat the fat and it's filled with so much sodium...and well, I really can't help myself, I find the biggest plate I can and fill it up! This is another traditional Newfoundland meal, however, the salt beef is usually cooked as a side meat with another roasted meat as the main meat. Some people make it with pease pudding as well, I don't. I have never had a salt beef meal I didn't enjoy, although, I have to say I do like mine the best, nobody seems to make it as salty as I do. It's so simple to do, it does take alot of time to cook but it's worth it!

Here is a plate that I had at Thanksgiving, so there was some turkey on the plate too. What you don't see is the homemade cranberry sauce and homemade mustard pickles that were eaten with this, I had to make some room on the plate before I could add them!

1 bucket of salt beef , here's the kind I use, I use a whole pail if I don't have any other meat cooked, if I have other meat I use 1/2 -3/4 of the bucket

7- 8 carrots, peeled

1 turnip (rutabaga) peeled and cut into big chunks

1 cabbage, cut into wedges

8-10 potato

The night before, if you want, soak your salt beef in cold water, in the fridge. If not, cut your beef into chunks and add to a big stock pot filled about halfway with water. Some people pre boil their beef, if you want to do that, bring it to a boil, then drain the water and refill it half way with water again. 

Boil the beef, covered,for about 1.5 hours. Then add the carrot, turnip and cabbage to the pot. Cover again, boil for about another 45 minutes. Put the potato in and boil for 30 minutes.

Take it off the heat, pour as much water as you can out. I use some of the liquid for my gravy. Separate all the vegetables. Mash the turnip with little bit of pepper and butter. 

My mom makes doughboys with our dinner, I can never get them right so I don't have a recipe for them.

I also make dressing, also known as stuffing, with my dinner. It is super easy to make.

1 loaf of french bread

2 tbsp dried savory

1/2 small onion diced

1/2 cup liquid from the salt beef

2 tbsp of butter, cubed

Make bread crumbs out of the bread. I use a mix of chunks and crumbs. Then mix everything in a large bowl. Place in a casserole dish and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Here's my turkey

Leek and Potato Soup with Pancetta

In my food box last week I was given leeks and potatoes, well and lots of other stuff, but as soon as I saw these two things, I knew leek and potato soup had to be on the menu this week. I made the soup on a day where I work a little later than usual, and was starving. It is a quick soup to make, when it was done, my chicken was done baking in the oven. I didn't take any pictures, I was way to hungry to worry about pictures and could only hold the kids off from eating other things for so long. So here's the recipe

3 leeks, cleaned well and sliced thin

6 medium to large Yukon potato, peeled and diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

150 g chopped pancetta

2 cartons of reduced sodium chicken stock, or homemade if you have it

2 tbsp olive oil

1 cup of milk

salt and pepper to taste

optional: sour cream, shredded cheese, green onion or chives

Heat the oil in a pot over medium heat. Add the pancetta, cook it for a few minutes to give the oil some flavour. Use a slotted spoon to take it out, keep as much oil as you can in the pot. Let the oil from the pancetta drain on a paper towel. Add the leeks and garlic to the pot, season with about 1/4 tsp each of salt and pepper. Saute the leeks and garlic for a few minutes or until the leeks start to soften a bit. Add the chicken stock a little bit at first to deglaze the pot. Scrape up all the little bits, then pour in the rest of the stock. Add the potatoes. Cover and boil until the potatoes are soft. At this point you can either blend the soup, a little bit at a time in a blender or use an immersion blender to blend it. Keep it chunky or make it smooth. When your done blending, add in your milk. Stir. Taste, add more salt and pepper if needed. Add the pancetta back to the soup. You can top it off with any of the optional ingredients and you can easily use bacon instead of pancetta.

Fish and Brewis

Every now and then I get a huge craving for traditional Newfoundland food. This is one of them. It doesn't look the prettiest and it's very bland looking but it is delicious. The salt fat pork is not as easy to get these days as it was. I have asked in stores and they have directed me to slabs of bacon. That isn't what it is, there is no meat on it, just the fat. This is one of those meals that take me back to my childhood. I never ate the brewis then, but I love it now.

Ingredients
1 fillet of boned salt cod
7 potatoes peeled
1 cake of hard bread for each person

Scrunchions
1 slab of salt fat pork
1/2 onion diced
1/2 cup oil, I used extra virgin olive oil

The night before:
You need 2 large bowls. Put the hard bread in 1 bowl and the salt fish in a another bowl. Cover them each with cold water and cover the bowls. I placed a plate and a bowl on top of the salt fish bowl to keep the fish submerged. Soak overnight.

The next day you can dump the water for the salt fish and replace it with new cold fresh water if you don't want your fish too salty. When your ready to cook peel your potatoes and cover with water. Start boiling them.Cut up your fat pork into small cubes and place in a pan with the oil. Cook the fat pork for about 5 minutes. Dice and onion and put that in the oil as well.  Drain your fish, put it in another pot and bring to a boil, watch this pot carefully, it will more than likely boil over. Turn the fat pork fat off when it gets brown. Boil the fish for about 10 minutes, then turn the burner off. When the potatoes are cooked, drain off some of the water. Drain the hard bread, Put the hard bread on top of the potatoes. Cover and steam the hard bread for about5 minutes, or until it's soft. Drain the potatoes and brewis and drain the fish. Top it all off with scrunchions.

Beef and Moose Barley Soup

I ate moose when I was young and hated it. Well, it was more like I hated any kind of meat my Mom cooked. I still don't eat much of what she cooks now. An Aunt of mine was visiting from  Newfoundland not that long ago. She was cooking a big salt beef dinner and moose. After a lot of going back in forth in my mind, I decided to try it. I loved it! I was able to get my hands on some moose recently but it was a variety of steaks and minced moose. There was no way I was putting a strip loin or tenderloin in my slow cooker, but I had one inside moose steak. So I bought some eye of round steaks and made some soup for my lunch. I prep my food for the week almost every weekend. I've blogged about some of the stuff I've made here, here, here and here. Soup is so easy for me to put in a thermos and have a hot lunch when I get tired of cold lunches. You could easily make this with all moose or all beef.

 12 oz eye of round

10 oz inside moose steak

2 backs of beef bouillon

10 cups of water

1 sweet potato

2 medium yukon gold potatoes

4 small carrot

2 turnips

2 red pepper

Couple sprigs of thyme

S&P

1 tomato

1 green onion

¼ cup barley, rinsed

 Cut the meat in 1 inch cubes. Cut the vegetables about the same size. Brown you meat in a pan, then put it in the slow cooker. Throw everything else in. Cook for 12 hours on medium.

This made enough for 2 weeks, I froze half of it. I was also thinking about how great it would be with some salt beef in it! Yum!