Souper Douper!

Photo by cogdogblog on Flickr. Used under a creative commons licence.

Name a food that is (a) easy to prepare (b) healthy and (c) inexpensive to make?

My husband reminded us of one last week.

Soup.

But not any old soup. Homemade chicken rice soup. From scratch.

I know! It sounds like a no-brainer, right? Soup is soup. It has sustained people for generations. Yet, how many of us regularly make our own chicken broth? There was a time when I made chicken soup all the time, but I fell out of the habit of it, given that there are so many easy (read: canned) alternatives that can be ready in slightly less time than it takes to press a couple of buttons on a microwave. So why make your own? You just have to eat one bowl of freshly made soup, and the reasons become obvious. Homemade chicken soup is one of those foods that is easy and cheap to make, and infinitely better from scratch than anything that comes out of a can. It’s just nicer. And it’s better for you, too. As someone who avoids gluten, I know what’s exactly in my soup when it’s made at home. And it makes me happy. We should all eat what makes us happy.

Peter’s become the designated chicken rice soup maker around our place. Here’s how he does it:

At the grocery store I decided to buy the pack of 4 chicken breasts on the bone (around $11 vs $20+ for boneless). Boning the meat isn’t hard; however not being an expert I didn’t fret getting every last bit off the bones. However, I’d paid for the things so I didn’t want to throw them out. So I made soup. To the bones-with-meat I added 1 finely chopped onion, 2 biggish carrots, 2 stalks celery (with leaves even!), peppercorns, 1 large bay leaf, some thyme and 2 whole cloves of garlic plus water to cover, and simmered for 2 hours. After a night in the fridge, I skimmed the fat, took the meat off the bones, and added a cup or so of rice (and cooked for 20 min) and salt to taste. Awesome and simple. Boning the meat-5 min; chopping onions, carrots and celery-5 min; picking meat from bones and skimming-5 min; everything else-5 min. We had enough for 6 good sized bowls that blew away any store-bought soup, plus 4 good sized breasts that we cooked up the first night.

Four chicken breasts. Two meals, and one of them is soup. Of course, chicken soup freezes really well, but only if you have leftovers to freeze in the first place!

Argh, Matey! A Pirate Themed Party

My son celebrated his birthday on April 1.  If ever there was a person more suited to sharing his birthday April Fools, I have yet to meet them.

My mostly vivacious, sometimes naughty and definitely charismatic son turned 4 and with it came a request to have a pirate themed party. And everyone had to dress-up.  Even the grandparents.

There are some great party blogs that offer advice on everything from frugal decorations to menu planning to easy-to-coordinate games.  Some of my favourites are:

The Party Dress

Passion For Parties

The Hostess With The Mostess

Martha Stewart

Here are some pictures from the party.  Hopefully they serve as inspiration for your next ‘do.

A piñata stuffed with loot served as the centerpiece.  The boys had a great time smashing it open and collecting their booty!

I used an old wine bottle case as a treasure chest and stuffed it with costume jewelry and gold covered chocolates.  It made for a simple centerpiece on one of the tables.

 

It’s been years of kitchen disasters but I am happy to say that I am making progress.  These cupcakes are from a mix but I made the icing myself.  The pirate flags and cupcake wrappers are Wilton.

My sister-in-law who knows her way around the kitchen made these pirate cake-pops.  Check out the detail on the face and the cinnamon heart as the knot in the bandana.  I am waiting for her put her recipes together and make a cookbook or start a blog.

And my final effort was the pirate ship cake that I made for my little Captain.   It was surprisingly easy to make, cut up and serve.

What are some of your favourite party blogs?  With three kids, and a large extended family, there is always a reason to have a party.  Please share your go-to resources.

Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup

It was a miracle!  A meal that had ALL THREE boys smacking their lips!  One of them even got up from the table to give me a hug and a “thank you for making dinner.”  This, I thought, is a recipe I have to share!  It’s a silky, decadent and hearty soup that, combined with a green veggie and wraps, makes a perfect meal.

I love spicy Thai food, so I made mine with green curry paste, which can be added at the last minute to just the portion for the spice lovers.  If you want to get fancy, you can make a really tasty condiment for the soup from the juice of one lime and a handful of cilantro whizzed in the blender.  Put one dollop of the cold cilantro lime pesto into the middle of the bowl of hot soup, and enjoy the contrast in flavour and temperature. 

Now that I know the boys like this, I will try to hide things in it next time.  Probably silken tofu for a burst of protein.

Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup

serves six

Ingredients

Two tablespoons of olive oil

Two medium onions, diced

Two large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into 1-cm cubes

two cubes of vegetable stock

six cups of water

one can of coconut milk, use light coconut milk for a less decadent version

1/2 teaspoon of Thai green curry paste, to taste

one lime

cilantro for garnish

Things you can hide in here: silken tofu, carrots, yogurt, milk, white beans…

Sautee onion in oil over medium heat for 2-3 mins.

Add water, stock, and sweet potato.

Bring to a boil and boil until potato is tender, about 10 mins.

Use immersion blender, or puree in batches in blender until very smooth.

Whisk in coconut milk.

Set a portion aside for those who like spicy food, and whisk green curry paste into that portion. 

Serve with a wedge of lime and garnish with cilantro.

Wait for lip smacking and hugs to begin.

Dinner, Solved!

Today, Colleen de Wit of I Heart Cooking, shares her favourite cooking tips and two easy-peasy recipes (so easy in fact, that I can make them!).

Don’t be scared. I’m not here to lecture you on mapping out your dinner plans in a spreadsheet for the next 2 weeks. Dinnertime doesn’t need to be complicated, and can even be * gasp * yummy and exciting. Here are my top dinner tips along with two of my favourite recipes.

Menu planning doesn’t need to be rigid. If you’re not a “list person”, make a general plan for the week. Buy groceries for 5 meals, but don’t have them planned for any particular day. Or maybe you’ll just decide what type of meat you’ll have all week (3 fish, 1 chicken, 1 pork) but you’re not sure which recipe you’ll use till 5pm that day. Or maybe you’re only going to plan 1 meal a week, on your family’s busiest day. Plan your meals in the way that suits your household.

Cook dinner at a time that works best for you. There’s no rule that says that dinner must be made in one continuous motion starting at 5pm. I have been known to chop vegetables at 9am, because that’s when my son is less likely to be attached to my leg. If you have a moment in the day (or evening), try to do some prep on your dinner. Every little bit helps.

Write down your meals on the calendar. That way, if you’re stuck for a dinner idea, scan through the past few weeks to get a bit of inspiration. (or if you forget what you’ve planned to eat for dinner, you can easily find the answer)

Use helpful kitchen appliances. Rice cookers and vegetable steamers are great gadgets that can save you time and energy. Although they usually take a bit longer to cook food than the traditional stovetop method, you don’t have to hover over the stove and most have an automatic shut-off feature. No more burned rice or soggy veggies!

Spanish Style Mish-Mash

Give this recipe a chance to prove its deliciousness. I was skeptical at first, but once I made this it has become one of my favourites. Don’t forget the parsley!

½  pkg of frozen, uncooked medium sized shrimp (get the peeled kind to make your life easier)

2 hot Italian or chorizo sausages

1 onion

1 tomato, coarsely chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

½ tsp hot chili flakes (or 1 jalapeno finely chopped if you so desire)

¼ c sliced pimento stuffed green olives (I omit these when I make this recipe)

1 ½ tsp oregano

1 tsp paprika

10 oz can chicken broth

1 cup couscous

¼ c chopped fresh Italian (flat leaf) parsley

Place shrimp in a colander and rinse under cold water until thawed. Pat dry with a paper towel. Thickly slice sausage. Oil a large saucepan and set over medium heat. Add sausage to pan and stir often until lightly browned (about 4-5 minutes). Coarsely chop onion and add to sausages. Stir frequently until onion begins to soften, about 3 minutes.

While the onion and sausages are cooking, chop the tomato, garlic, olives and jalapeno (if using). Add to pan along with the oregano and paprika. Stir occasionally until tomato starts to break down—about 2 minutes. Add broth and shrimp, scraping up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Bring to a boil. As soon as shrimp turns pink, stir in couscous. Cover and remove from heat. Let stand until liquid is absorbed, about 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork and sprinkle with parsley.

Tex Mex Sloppy Joes

Not your usual sloppy joes. Great flavour and slightly fancier with the addition of crusty bread and avocadoes.

1 lb ground beef

1 small onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves minced

1 700mL jar of pasta sauce, preferably spicy (like spicy red pepper)

1 cup salsa

1 tbsp oregano

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp tabasco (optional)

grated cheese

sour cream

avocado

tomato

shredded lettuce

Crusty bread (French bread, ciabatta, etc)

Lightly coat a large saucepan with oil and set over medium heat. Crumble beef into pan. Sprinkle with onion and garlic. Using a fork, break up and stir meat until its no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Drain off excess liquid.

Add sauce, salsa, oregano, cumin and tabasco. Stirring often, bring to a boil. Reduce heat. Cover and gently simmer about 10 minutes. Spoon sauce over slices of crusty bread. Top with cheese, sour cream, sliced avocado and tomatoes.

*Colleen won the Home Ec award in 8^th grade and never looked back. She is the owner of I Heart Cooking, where her aim is to boost your confidence and abilities in the kitchen. Check out www.iheartcooking.ca or www.facebook.com/iheartcooking.ca

Baked Kale Chips

Have you tried these yet?  You may well have, because recipes for them pepper the Internet.  And for good reason, because they are positively delicious.  And the best for we who mother, and the worst, is that kids love them too.  At least mine do.  This is the best because they will down a head of nutritious kale in about four minutes.  It’s the worst because if I don’t make a second head, I will barely get any.  They really are that good.  There are never, and I mean never, any left over.

Also, the kale chips are such a cinch to make, your kids can practically make them themselves.  You (or they) will need just three things:  kale (with curly leaves), olive oil, and salt (sea salt is nice).   Then:

-  wash the kale, removing the stems*

- massage some olive oil on the leaves (some people say a tablespoon for a bunch of kale; I use more)

- sprinkle a little salt

- spread on a baking tray in a single layer

- bake at 350F for 12 minutes or so.

The only trick is to check the kale carefully and turn it to make sure it doesn’t burn.   Dark green chips are ideal.  A little brown is okay but too much brown will taste burnt.

Then watch, as they will seem to disappear into thin air, but you’ll know their nourishing your favourite tiny bodies in all the world.  Frito Lay, eat your heart out.

*About the stems, during one of our cooking sessions, my five year old cried out, let’s bake the stems!  So we did.  They didn’t have the crispiness of the leaves and were thus a little less satisfying, but they were eaten up too.  Usually I keep them for a really nice addition to veggie stock.

A Delicious Cinnamon Treat

It’s always been one of my New Year’s Resolutions to learn to cook, to cook more meals for my family, to try and make new things for dinners . . . this year my resolution is a bit different.

This year, I say, to heck with that resolution and just embrace the fact that my cooking skills are limited to those of a third grader.

It’s a good thing that I subscribe to some fabulous food blogs that from time to time feature recipes for amateurs such as myself.

Last month, uber-food blogger Smitten Kitchen, blogged a recipe for Cinnamon Brown Butter Breakfast Puffs.

In the intro, she states that she made these in 7^th grade Home Economics class.  That was all I needed to read.  I figure that if a bunch of twelve years old can bake these things, than I can too.

For the full recipe click here.

It’s an easy recipe to follow and result is dangerously tasty.  I had to impose a one-puff maximum on myself, or else I could have easily eaten the entire batch.  The boys enjoyed them as dessert because I think that they are a little too decadent for breakfast.  Paired with a vanilla ice cream, they are a winning combination for your next dinner party.

Next time I make these I am going to add a dollop of sour cream to the batter.  Or maybe even some cut-up apple.  I imagine that variations to the simple batter can be easily executed.

On second thought, maybe I should just stick with the recipe.

What are some of your favourite food blogs?