Ham and Bean Soup

I love love LOVE ham and bean soup.  I always get excited to make a ham because it can make sooo many yummy leftovers... ham and eggs, ham fried rice, ham sandwiches, (well... I guess not anymore) and this lovely soup. I first found this recipe on allrecipes.com but I can't find it there anymore... luckily I printed it out when I first found it! A made a couple of small changes.  Here it is:

Ham and Bean Soup

2 medium carrots, sliced
2 celery ribs, chopped
1 onion chopped
2 tablespoons butter
1-2 cloves minced garlic
4 cans great northern beans, rinsed and drained
4 cups chicken broth
2 cups cubed fully cooked ham
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 bay leaf

In a large saucepan, saute the carrots, celery, and onion in butter until tender.  Add garlic and saute for a few minutes.  Stir in the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.  Cover and turn down the heat to a simmer and simmer for 20 minutes.  Eat it up.

If you have a ham bone, toss it in and let it simmer with everybody else in the pot.
I could eat this everyday. Seriously.

Cucumber Salsa

In my weekly farmer's market produce basket I got a lot of cucumbers and tomatoes so I decided to find a salsa recipe for my salsa loving hubby.  I found this and have made it twice. It is super fresh and delicious!

Cool Cucumber Salsa

2 medium cucumbers - peeled, seeded, and chopped
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon minced fresh parsley
2 teaspoons minced fresh cilantro

1/2 teaspoon dried dill weed
1/2 teaspoon salt

In a medium bowl, stir together the cucumbers, tomatoes, green pepper, jalapeno pepper, onion, garlic, lime juice, parsley, cilantro, dill, and salt. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour. Serve with tortilla chips.

The best way to get the seeds out of the cucumber is to get a teaspoon and use it to scrape out the seeds.    They come out super easy that way.  

I didn't add the fresh parsley because I didn't have any.  I also didn't feel like adding any dill weed.  One time I added too much of it to a recipe one time and now I have been turned off by it.  Enjoy!

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Tortilla soup is something that I love, but was not sure my 3-year old would eat.  I shouldn't have worried.  Both times I've made this simple recipe from Wheat Belly she has eaten her entire bowl full and loved it!  I served it with jicama sticks this last time and you should see how many of those she can eat as well!

4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 pound boneless, skinless, chicken breasts, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
1 large Spanish onion, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
2 tomatoes, finely chopped
3-4 jalapenos, seeded and finely chopped (or less depending on your taste)
salt and pepper
2 avocados
1 cup shredded Monterey Jack or Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
4 tablespoons sour cream

Bring the broth to a boil in a large saucepan over medium heat; keep warm.  Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add the chicken and garlic and cook until the chicken is nicely browned, 5-6 minutes.

Add the cooked chicken, onion, bell pepper, tomatoes, and jalapenos to the stock.  Return the broth to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for 30 minutes.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Ladle the soup into shallow bowls.  Top each bowl with avocado, cheese, cilantro, and sour cream.

My Take:  Love this recipe!  Couple things I do different though.  Since I keep a bag of frozen chicken tenderloins on hand I prep them like this:

Place the the frozen tenderloins on a foil lined baking sheet.  Drizzle with olive oil (I give them a good rub to make sure they get a light coating) and sprinkle with garlic salt and pepper.  Broil in the oven for 7 minutes.  Turn them over, sprinkle the other side with garlic salt and pepper and broil another 7 minutes.  You are now ready to dice them up and add to the soup (or anything else that calls for cubed chicken for that matter!)

I also added hardly any jalapeno, since Joey and Jenna can't handle anything too spicy.  I keep my bowl free of sour cream, but don't skimp on the avocado, cheese, and cilantro - they really make this soup outstanding!

Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce

I wanted to make something quick and easy for dinner.  I was in the mood for pasta (GF corn pasta of course (:  ) and wanted a creamy tomato sauce that used onions because I had a lot from my farmer's market weekly produce basket (bountiful basket-esque) I turned to allrecipes.com to find a solution and found this:

Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 (14.5 ounce) can Italian-style diced tomatoes, undrained
1 tablespoon dried basil leaves
3/4 teaspoon white sugar
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon butter

In a saucepan, saute onion and garlic in olive oil over medium heat. Make sure it doesn't burn. Add tomatoes, basil, sugar, oregano, salt and pepper. Bring to boil and continue to boil 5 minutes or until most of the liquid evaporates. Remove from heat; stir in whipping cream and butter. Reduce heat and simmer 5 more minutes.

Seems pretty easy right? Would take two pots- one for the pasta, one for the sauce, right? Maybe for the normal person.  4 pots, 45 minutes, and an immersion blender later, I had a fabulous meal, a happy husband, and a horribly messy and tomato-sauce splattered kitchen.  So much for a quick and easy meal.  Don't get me wrong, it was easy... or it should have been.  But I decided to cook 2 different kinds of pasta- GF corn pasta for me, and normal pasta for Taylor.  (I had a 1/4 of bag of each opened and GF is too expensive to feed to someone who doesn't try to eat GF at all.  What else was I to do?)  I also decided halfway into the meal to saute a half pound of mushrooms in butter for Taylor since we had a ton of them from our produce basket.  So I was busy juggling making the sauce, making one pasta, draining it, setting it aside, getting more water to boil, cutting up mushrooms, getting a smaller pot to make some broccoli, boiling the corn pasta, sauteeing the mushrooms, finishing the sauce, draining the pasta... and THEN I had the bright idea to put the sauce into the bigger pasta pot so I could immersion blend it so it was smoother (the saute pan it was in was too shallow so I HAD to move it to the bigger pot) so I had to transfer it to the pasta pot while the pasta sat in the strainer in the sink, and then once it was blended, I put it make in the original saute pan and added sour cream instead of heavy cream.  Only after I did that, did I notice my corn pasta was grossly under cooked had to re-boil some more water and put it back in the now dirty pasta pot.  WHEW! Was I tired after making this meal! 

It was totally worth it though.  Super delicious and flavorful.  Next time, I will try to think ahead so I don't have so much chaos.  

In case you got lost in the mayhem of the making of it, the things I did differently from the recipe were to immersion blend it before adding the butter and sour cream (instead of heaving whipping cream). I also added some parmesan cheese

<----- visible underneath the sauce :) 

Banana Oatmeal Breakfast Muffins

I pinned these while babysitting last night and woke up this morning sooo excited to make them and have a delicious and nutritious breakfast.  Well, after waking up and not having any yogurt, eggs, or honey to make them, I hopped straight into the car (in my sweats, slippers, and glasses (not a pretty sight) and drove over to Sam's club to pick up the needed ingredients.  Then I got home and promptly whipped up a batch of Banana Oatmeal Breakfast Muffins.  They go a little something like this:

Ingredients:
2.5 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup plain low fat greek yogurt
2 eggs
1/2 cup honey
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 TBSP ground flax seed
1 tsp vanilla
2 ripe bananas

Chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray tin with non-stick cooking spray or line 12 muffin tins with silicone or foil liners.
2. Place the oats in the food processor and pulse for about 10 seconds. Add remaining ingredients (except chocolate chips) to the food processor. 

3. Process until everything is mixed together and oats are smooth. Add chocolate chips.
4. Divide batter among cupcake liners, and bake for 18-20 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

I don't have a big enough food processor to mix the whole recipe up in one, so I just use my baby one to chops up the oats and then I mixed everything in a large bowl with my hand mixer.  I also mushed up the bananas with a fork on a plate before mixing it in.  I pulsed the chocolate chips in the food processor too because I am not a big fan of chocolate chips in things so I would rather have little flecks of chocolate in it then full chips.  I also did not have cupcake liners which I think would have been better.  But! All in all they are pretty delicious.  Not too sweet and I can feel good about eating them.  I ate 3 right out of the oven and they didn't make me feel super full and heavy. Just good clean food.
(and they don't have a very strong banana taste at all-which is good because I don't love bananas)

Power Up!

My need for sweets drives my life... usually into guilt-laden activities such as watching tv with a spoon and a half gallon of Blue Bell ice cream, or making a very large self portion of rice krispie treats via the microwave.  After many "why did I do that" thoughts to myself, I decided to find a healthier outlet.  Enter "No-Bake Energy Bites".  (choir of angels singing "aaaaaahhhh")

If No-Bake cookies and cookie dough had a healthy baby, this would be it.  These little "energy bites" or "energy balls," as I have started calling them, as soo delicious and satisfy my dessert/sweets/sugar cravings without any guilt :) I found countless versions of them on pinterest and decided to give them a try. They are super fast to whip up and store.

No-bake Energy Balls

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup honey
1 tsp of vanilla
1/4-1/2 tsp cinnamon (depending on your tastes)
1-2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
1 cup rolled oats
1/4-1/2 cup of flax seed


Mix the peanut butter, honey, vanilla, and cinnamon together in a bowl. Then add cocoa powder.  Then add in the oats and flax seed.  Refrigerator for an hour and then roll into bite size balls.  Place balls into an airtight container and store in fridge or freezer.

There are endless variations of these balls.  You can add in chopped nuts, seeds, dried fruit, coconut, etc.  Kind of like trail mix in a little ball.

I like to keep mine choco peanut so they are more like a little ball of no bake cookie goodness.  You can eat 2-3 of them for a snack because they are pretty filling or I like to eat one after lunch to soothe my sweet tooth cravings.  Taylor likes to sneak them at breakfast when I am still asleep.  He will come in to give me a kiss before he leaves and I can smell the chocopeanuty goodness on his breath!

Now that I have made them a couple times, I never measure any of the ingredients.  I just kinda pour and mix until I get the combination of flavors and texture that I like.  So experiment, have fun, and don't feel guilty! They are healthy, right? ;)

Chicken Nuggets

I hate days like this:  It was 5:30 pm and I still had no idea what we were going to have for dinner.  The flank steak was in the fridge thawing for tomorrow's dinner (useless!), we were low on fresh veggies, so no inspiration there.  Everything I could think of required a trip to the store, which was so not going to happen.  I talked to Nicole and she was no help - they picked up BBQ for dinner.  Actually, she might have helped.  Got me thinking about eating out and quick and easy meals...I turned to the Wheat Belly Cookbook and BAM!  There was my answer:  homemade chicken nuggets!

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or tenderloins!)
2 eggs
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup ground golden flaxseeds
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 375.  Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.  Slice the chicken into 1 1/2 - 2 inch pieces.

In a small bowl, whisk the eggs and butter.  In a shallow bowl, combine the flaxseeds, cheese, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.

Coat each piece of chicken in the egg mixture and then roll in the flaxseed mixture.  Place on the baking pan.

Bake for 20 minutes, turning once, or until no longer pink and the juices run clear.

My Take:  YUM!  These really were quick and easy to whip up.  While the chicken thawed in the microwave, (yes, I cheat) and the oven preheated, I threw the rest together.  Dredging each piece took a little time, and I used every last drop of the flaxseed mixture.  The cooking time was perfect and they came out a little golden and smelled delicious.  Threw some green beans and corn on the side and we had a meal!  They were an instant hit with all three of us, and went well with our dipping sauces of choice (guess which belongs to each of us!).  The only problem: not a single leftover.