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Ingredients Archives: Chicken Broth

Shepherd’s Pie Baked Potatoes

By on August 10, 2017 in Main Dishes

Tonight on the menu in our house was shepherd’s pie. I always try to make dinner as easy as possible, but sometimes even that’s more effort than I feel like giving after a day of being a mom.. The idea of using a pan to cook the meat, two more to cook potatoes (we have to make sweet and regular potatoes in our house because everyone likes something different), and two pans to bake the pies (again for different potatoes) made me want to order a pizza.

Then I thought, “what if I just put the meat on top of a baked potato? Wouldn’t that taste the same?” The answer: YES! It does. I made the potatoes on one foil-lined pan that didn’t need to be washed. I didn’t have to wash a potato masher, and I didn’t have to wash the pans I’d have to use to bake the pies. I ended up washing one skillet. SUCCESS!

I used a lot of vegetables in this dish because I’m always trying to cram in more vegetables. This dish is a perfect way to add vegetables because once it all simmers in the sauce, your kids won’t even notice all the veggies. Mine didn’t!

I had to take a picture of this because it’s so beautiful! When they say, “eat all the colors of the rainbow everyday,” this is a great start.

I topped my husband’s and daughter’s servings with some grass-fed, grated cheese. My daughter hasn’t eaten dinner that fast in a long time. We cook our sweet potatoes using this method from empowered sustenance (click here for link). I always add a russet potato to the pan for my husband and it comes out just as perfectly as the sweet potatoes.


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Healthy Remake: Gluten-Free Pumpkin Soup with Apple Relish

By on November 18, 2016 in Main Dishes

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A few weeks ago I was more stressed than usual. I decided the thing that would decrease my stress would be to organize my pantry. I know this doesn’t make a ton of sense, but you people like me (Type A and slightly OCD) understand how a well-organized pantry can lower stress.

In my organization, I stacked 13 cans of pumpkin puree. Thirteen!! That’s when I knew I had a problem. But since it is fall, I decided to put that pumpkin to good use and not just for pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin pancakes… I really want some pumpkin right now.

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I immediately thought of this amazing pumpkin soup I had a few weeks ago. My friend had a pumpkin party (best idea ever, right?) and made this amazing pumpkin soup from Rachael Ray (click here for original recipe). But I was sad when I saw the recipe and realized it included flour and diary. The soup is actually pretty healthy in its original version but if you are like me and swell up in your joints and gut if you eat gluten or dairy, you’ll appreciate my dilemma.

I decided to make the soup but change the ingredients and adjust them to still get the same creamy consistency without the flour.  I also wanted to up the protein with some chicken. I’m pleased to report I was very successful. My whole family loved this soup.

The best part is that it comes together in one pan. Start by sauteing the vegetables in the butter.

The bulk of this soup comes from three cans. How easy is that?! Just a can of chicken stock, a can of pumpkin and a can of coconut milk.

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Then it gets some great flavor from the nutmeg and bay leaves.

After this simmers together, just add some cooked chicken pieces. We use thighs because we like them better than breasts,  but any chicken will work great.

As far as the relish goes, I left it completely the same as the original recipe but replaced the Craisins with raisins. It’s close to impossible to find dried cranberries without added sugar, so I opted for the raisins. The flavor was still amazing. I also left out the chili as I knew that would not impress my 5-year-old.

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Now I have 12 cans left of pumpkin in my pantry. Guess I’ll have to try one of these (click here for a link to some great pumpkin recipes).

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Healthy One-Pot Italian Sausage Soup

By on March 25, 2016 in Main Dishes

2016-01-14 17.59.03It’s spring and I live in the Rockies. That means one day it will be 70 degrees and the next day, 30. And when it’s cold, I want soup. And this soup totally delivers on flavor. It has two, yes TWO different sausages. This is an important component in our house as my 5-year-old daughter’s favorite food is either sausage or bacon, depending on the day of the week. This also comes together in one pot which makes clean-up much easier.

Start by cooking the pepper and onion in avocado oil in a large pot. Then add in some ground Italian chicken sausage and cook it through. Add in some diced tomatoes and chicken broth and now sliced smoked turkey sausage.

Now the part that really makes it fabulous: pesto. Stir in 1/2 C of basil pesto. I use a pre-made pesto but feel free to make your own.

Let this all simmer together and then throw in some zucchini at the end and let if cook a bit longer. This keeps the zucchini from going mushy.

 

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One-Pan Apple Chicken Breasts

By on March 11, 2016 in Main Dishes

20150115_181247Chicken is cheap and has great protein, so we buy a lot of it. But chicken can easily become very boring. This is a fun change from a basic grilled chicken. I read a recipe similar to this in a “healthy” cookbook. I was shocked it was considered healthy with all the sugars and hydrogenated oils. I changed up some of the ingredients and left out the processed sugars and was very pleased with the results. My daughter loved it and since kids are always a good indication of whether a recipe is actually good, I’d say this one is a keeper.

Saute a sliced apple in the coconut oil until it’s tender. I used a Granny Smith apple because they were on sale but any apple will work fine. Set the apple slices aside in a bowl.

Season the chicken with the cinnamon, salt and pepper and add that to the pan with the rest of the coconut oil. Just brown both sides here. You’ll completely cook the chicken a little later. Browning it a bit before cooking it keeps it juicy and locks in the great flavors.

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Now set the chicken aside. Don’t worry about keeping it warm as it’s going to go back in the pan later. Add the onion, cover the pan and cook the onion until it’s soft. If you don’t cover the pan, the onion with get brown and  crunchy. You don’t want that. You want the onion as soft as the apple.

Now add in the liquids and let that simmer a bit before adding the chicken back in. Once the chicken is completely cooked, add the apples and make sure everything is warm.

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The best part about this dish (besides the flavor) is the fact that it comes together in one dish. I hate washing dishes so I cut out as many as possible when cooking. We ate this over rice, but you can use quinoa or mashed sweet potatoes.

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The Easiest Way to Cook Delicious Chicken

By on February 26, 2016 in Main Dishes

Everyone has that one thing they can’t cook. That thing that no matter how simple it is, no matter how closely you follow directions, you always fail. Right? Or is it just me? So I admit, there are actually two seemilgly simple things I just can’t make. One is rice. I truly feel like the laws of physics defy themselves when I try to make rice. Luckily, I solved that problem with a rice cooker. Done.

Cooking fail number two: a whole chicken. I can make turkey with no problem, but no matter how long I keep a whole chicken in the oven, it comes out raw in the middle. I don’t get it. Luckily, I found a solution to this problem too: the slow cooker. Not only does cooking it in the slow cooker ensure I can actually cook said chicken, but it always comes out moist and is so easy to put together. And I can come home to the smell of dinner and a warm, hearty meal. I will never try to cook a chicken in the oven again.

 

2016-01-10 10.58.03They are all generally around the same size, but I always try to buy the biggest chicken I can. This way I know I’ll have healthy leftovers during the week for salads. I would tell you how best to slice this chicken, but slicing is not an option. It basically just falls off the bone when you try to pull it out.

 

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Creamy Cauliflower Soup

By on November 13, 2015 in Main Dishes

I love to trick my family by adding healthy things to their food. I add beans to their brownies, avocado to their frosting and now cauliflower to their cheese soup. I gave them the soup, listened to them “ooh” and “aah” and never said a word about what was in it. Mwa ha ha! I love the small victories.

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Start by steaming the cauliflower. I got this lovely steaming basket at Ikea years ago. It’s one of my favorite kitchen tools because it fits in any pan and is dishwasher safe.

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While the cauliflower steams, cook the onion and garlic in the butter and avocado oil. Do this right in your soup pot. Add the salt, pepper, almond milk and chicken broth and heat this all together.

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Add the steamed cauliflower and puree with an immersion blender. I love my immersion blender for the same reason I love my veggie steamer. It’s extremely versatile and dishwasher safe.

Add the cheese and continue to cook the soup until the cheese melts.

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Top each serving with green onion, turkey bacon and more cheese.

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Healthy Mulligatawny

By on September 18, 2015 in Main Dishes

Whenever my daughter and I are having one of those rough days where we butt heads and can’t agree on anything, we need something to help us unwind and have fun together. For us, that’s an episode of Pioneer Woman on the Food Network. It doesn’t always stop the fighting, but for half an hour, we agree on something. Sometimes, that’s priceless.

A few weeks ago, we watched her make Mulligatawny soup. It looked amazing, but had a few ingredients I’m not okay with including in a week night dinner. I came up with a healthy variation which our whole family loves.

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The entire dish comes together in one pan which is my kind of meal. It cooks really fast but is packed full of flavor.

Start by cooking the chicken. Then add the onion and garlic and cook it all together.

Add the curry, broth and coconut milk and cook just to heat it up. Then add the chopped apple and cook for another five minutes. This will cook the apple but keep it from getting mushy.

Top each serving with some chopped peanuts. This adds more great flavor and crunch.

I love this dish because it’s a great,warm soup for winter but the freshness from the apple makes it great for any time of year.

 

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No Sugar BBQ Sauce

By on September 8, 2015 in Dressings and Sauces

BBQ sauce makes any meat better. Pour it over chicken, that’s all you need for a great dinner. Pour it over a pork roast and, voila; pulled pork. Smear it on hamburgers and they’re suddenly the best hamburgers ever. My daughter DSCN0305uses BBQ sauce like most kids use ketchup, so we go through a lot of it in our house. While I’m totally okay with adding strange things to food to get kids to eat them, I’m not okay with the sugar content of most condiments. This is especially true for BBQ sauce. When we made the change to a healthier lifestyle, I knew we couldn’t give up BBQ sauce. That’s when I began the quest to make a no-sugar BBQ sauce. Not only did I succeed, but my husband says this is the best BBQ sauce I’ve ever made and my daughter gave it her stamp of approval.

First let’s look at a typical bottled BBQ sauce. The sauce we bought before we made our own, contains 32 grams of sugar in 1/4 C with high fructose corn syrup being the first ingredient. That is crazy. My BBQ sauce has less than 3 grams of sugar in 1/4 C and tastes delicious.

This is also an easy recipe. I didn’t want a recipe that required a lot of sauteing, dish washing and vegetable chopping, so I made it simple. Just throw all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk them together. Yes there are a lot of ingredients, but they are likely things you have in your pantry. If you don’t like an ingredient, leave it out.

I like to store it in a mason jar (or a washed, glass peanut-butter jar since we have a million of those sitting around) and stick it in the fridge. This will stay good for about a two weeks.

DSCN0314One night we had some left over pork roast and needed a quick dinner. I threw the roast leftovers in a slow cooker with the BBQ sauce and we had dinner. It’s almost too easy.

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Healthy Slow Cooker Chicken Tacos

By on August 28, 2015 in Main Dishes

No matter where go you, there is no shortage of Mexican restaurants. Because what’s not to love? Sugar-sweetened meat, loads of melted cheese, processed-flour tortillas. Good news! There is a way to still enjoy delicious Mexican food without eating a ton of processed food, sugar and bad-for-you oils. And it won’t take all day.

This is a dump-in-the-slow-cooker recipe, so it takes very few steps and comes out moist and flavorful. When my husband was eating this he kept saying, “There’s just something about this.” That’s always a good sign.

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Start with the chicken breasts or thighs in a slow cooker. I personally like thighs because they come out much more moist. But if you prefer breasts, go right ahead.

Top with the taco seasoning, lime juice and zest, and chicken broth. No need to stir. Just turn on the slow cooker on high for four hours.

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After four hours, shred the chicken and add it back to the slow cooker. Stir in the salsa and let it heat through for another half hour.

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Now serve it in lettuce wraps. If you really hate lettuce wraps, substitute a whole-grain tortilla. I always use green-leaf lettuce but you can use romaine or iceberg. Top it with sour cream, guacamole and shredded cheese.

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