Amidst our sickness and snow fall I managed to do quite a bit of cooking.
Not just any cooking. Total comfort food cooking.
The cold weather was an obvious stimulate for such food, but having rampant sickness (and stress) also helped. At least for me. As someone who enjoys cooking, it was the perfect release from a hard day. Especially, because I have a wonderful husband who took care of the kids, giving me an hour to zone out and focus on something other than diapers and medication.
Here are a couple dishes I made.
Reminder. I speak non-recipe, so if you're extremely Type A the below will not help you since my measurments are approximations. so sorry.
Creamy Vegetable Chicken Soup
Below is a modification of this recipe from Pioneer Woman.
Ingredients
Frozen veggies (mine are from Costco)- (a little less than half the bag)
Coconut oil- (2-3 tablespoons)
Chicken stock (1-2 cartons)
Frozen chicken breast (3)
Can of diced tomatoes
Can of diced green chilies
Onion- diced
Garlic- diced ( 3-4 cloves)
Garlic powder (to taste)
Basil (1-2 tablespoons
Sea salt (to taste)
Bay leaves (2 leaves)
Cream or half in half ( 1-1.5 cups)
In a large pot or crockpot add all of the ingredients except the seasonings and cream.
If using a pot, I'd let coconut oil heat up then add everything.
If using crockpot, you can leave out coconut oil.
Next, add basil, bay leaves, and generously salt.
Cook on medium to medium-high heat for a couple hours or set crockpot on low and let cook for approx 6-7 hours (maybe shorter).
After a couple hours of cooking (in a pot), you can reduce the heat a bit, add a little more salt.
Once the dish has cooked for at least 4-5 hours, begin tasting. You may need more salt and if the garlic isn't strong enough add garlic powder.
Let cook one more hour (or so).
Add cream and enjoy!
Side note: the veggies will get really soft and almost puree themselves as you continually stir the dish. This makes for an interesting sight, but phenomenal taste.
Creamy Sherry Tomato Soup and Homemade bread
Modified from this recipe.
Following the recipe would be great, but I wanted to use what I had on hand.
My 'on-hand' modifications are as follows:
Half in half instead of cream.
Tomato paste and chicken stock instead of tomato juice.
2 bouillon cubes instead of chicken base.
Added 2 handfuls of baby carrots.
The homemade bread is from this recipe. I didn't have bread flour on hand so I used all purpose (1/2 whole wheat, 1/2 white). It tasted great, but texture was a bit dense. Nothing a little butter couldn't fix.
This soup is by far my FAVORITE tomato soup. EVER.
I ate on it for a few days, making california BLT's (with turkey bacon) as it's side-kick. So delicious.
Cheeseburger with Sauteed Onions and mock In-N-Out burger sauce
I'm not a huge beef eater, but something got into me last week and I couldn't stop thinking about a juicy cheeseburger. So the hubs and I joined forces and made one heck of a sandwhich.
First, I sauteed the onions in butter. Yes. Buttteerrr.
He prepared the burgers, giving them his own special touch. aka- salt, pepper, and lowrys.
I buttered the buns and added a touch of garlic powder, then placed in the oven to toast.
Then I prepared the In-N-Out sauce from this recipe- I left out the relish and onions. relish, b/c it's yuck. onions, because I was too lazy to dice more.
Bob then grilled the burgers and I ran to McDonald's to get some french fries.
We rarely eat fast food and when we do it's almost always Chick- Fil-A, but we thought if we're going down tonight, we're going down right.
And I'm so glad we did.
Everything tasted awesome.
I hope you enjoy some of these recipes! They won't disappoint.
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