Chicken Tortilla Soup

Posted on July 24, 2010 by arulba

My son loves tortilla soup so I decided to attempt to make my own the other day. I honestly didn’t intend to make tortilla soup at the outset. I had chicken in the fridge that was approaching the “use by” date and some celery that was getting limp. I was just going to stew the chicken in onions and celery and then freeze the chicken for casseroles later. But something made me decide to make the chicken spicy so I added chili powder, paprika, cayenne pepper and crushed red pepper flakes. I tried the broth after the chicken was done and it had the perfect taste for tortilla soup. Very tasty. I had a few bell peppers on hand, a bag of corn and some avocado so I decided to go all out and made my own version of tortilla soup. I made my own tortilla strips for the soup, too, but my son ate them before any of the rest of us could try them in the soup. My husband ate the soup with brown rice, instead. He said it was excellent.

Personally, I’d like to come up with a vegetarian version. I think it could be just as good. But both my husband and son want me to make this again so I am writing down what I did so that I can recreate it.

Spicy Stewed Chicken and Broth

  • 2 1/2 quarts of water
  • 2 1/2 pounds split chicken breasts
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 6 stalks of celery, chopped
  • 1 tablespoons chili powder (or more)
  • several shakes of paprika
  • several shakes of cayenne pepper
  • several shakes of crushed red pepper flakes
  • salt and pepper to taste

Rinse the chicken. Place in large pot. Cover with water. Add chopped onion, celery and spices. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer on medium low heat 45 minutes. Separate broth from celery and onions. Tear chicken off of bones and set aside.

Tortilla Soup:

  • 1 tablespoon canola oil
  • 1 onion
  • 1 yellow bell pepper
  • 1 red bell pepper
  • several cloves of garlic
  • about 1 1/2 – 2 quarts spicy broth (see spicy stewed chicken method above)
  • 1 14.5 oz. can tomato soup
  • 1 16 oz. bag frozen corn
  • shredded chicken (see spicy stewed chicken method above)
  • leftover celery (see spicy stewed chicken method above)
  • 1/2 cup torn cilantro leaves
  • tortilla strips (or crushed tortilla chips)
  • cheese (optional)
  • avocado (optional)
  • cilantro sprigs (optional)

For tortilla strips: cut about 6 corn tortillas into strips and fry in canola oil until crunchy. Place on paper towel to absorb excess oil and cool. They get more crunchy as they cool. Be sure not to let your kids eat them all before they make it to the soup!

1. In a large pot, fry onions and garlic in canola oil for about 1 minute. (You can also used fresh diced celery, but I just added the celery from the broth later. For that matter, you could probably forgo another onion and use the onion from the broth, but I personally like the taste of fresh onions.)

2. Add red and yellow bell peppers and stir fry until all vegetables are tender.

3. Add spicy broth, tomato soup, corn and chicken. You can also add the celery left over from the broth, if desired. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes, adding cilantro about 10 minutes before finished.

4. Garnish with tortilla strips, cheese and avocado, if desired.

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Orzo Pasta Salad

Posted on July 23, 2010 by arulba

Orzo Pasta Salad is my daughter’s all-time favorite dish, bar none!  We haven’t made it in a while because for a long time, she insisted upon being vegan.  Then the doctor said we had to remove gluten from her diet.  The gluten-free diet ended her vegan days (it was way too difficult to do both), and we have since determined her issues are not thanks to gluten-intolerance.  We went entirely gluten-free for over a month (including shunning lipsticks that have gluten in them and avoiding every form of cross-contamination) and it didn’t help.  We’re beginning to suspect inferior corn products (like high fructose corn syrup).

Anyway, she had been craving Orzo Pasta Salad (which is neither vegan nor gluten-free) so I finally made it for her today and it turned out wonderfully.  Thankfully, for once, I actually measured everything that went into it so I can offer a decent recipe.

So here you go…

  • 16 oz. whole wheat orzo
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 medium red onion, diced (about 1/3 cup)
  • 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar (or to taste)
  • 6 to 7 oz. crumbled feta cheese

Cook whole wheat orzo according to package directions.   Combine with olive oil.  Set aside to cool.  (If you prefer, you can rinse the pasta with cold water before combining with olive oil but this tends to rinse the nutritional  benefits out of the pasta right along with the heat.  If you can spare it, patience provides a much more nutritious meal.  All depends on how hungry you are.)

Chop red onion.  Add to pasta.

Add balsamic vinegar and feta cheese.  Combine until well-mixed.

My daughter likes to eat it right away, but my husband and I prefer to allow the dish to sit in the refrigerator for several hours before eating it.  Even my daughter agrees that the flavors mix better when it has been allowed to sit for a while.

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Time to Change

Posted on July 22, 2010 by arulba

I started this blog when I became obsessed with the idea of making meals from scratch with whole foods.  I am 46 years old (going on 47) and this is something I’d never done before.  I grew up in a family that subsisted almost entirely on convenience foods.  So did my husband.  Unfortunately, we carried that same pattern into our own family.

We have always eaten out on a fairly regular basis.  If we eat at home, it is primarily frozen foods, canned foods, or pre-packaged convenience meals.  I might cook occasionally, but the recipes I use almost always involve some sort of pre-packaged convenience foods.

I realize that convenience foods were like a miracle to our parents.  My grandmother raised almost all of the food she cooked.  She “canned’ her own food from the garden (in bell jars). My mother was one of the few females in the family and had to cook for her many brothers.  By the time she married my dad, she didn’t want to have to cook anymore.  Who can blame her?

We ate a lot of frozen fish sticks, TV dinners and stuff from cans.  We also ate out a lot!  I remember lots of barbeque, nachos, food from Jack in the Box and hamburgers from McDonalds.  The main meal I remember having at home was fish stick sandwiches with American cheese and ketchup.  (We’d probably have it with canned peas, carrots or beets or something.  Just think of all those BPAs!!!)   My mother was also fond of making us toasted cheese which consisted of American cheese with butter on white processed bread.  That was a main staple.  The healthiest thing we ate was probably what we ate at the Picadilly Cafeteria, although I wonder how much of that was actually whole foods?  More than you’d find at a cafeteria today, probably.

My husband claims his main meal was beans and rice.  His family didn’t have a lot of money so that’s what they ate.  (Not that they were poor, but he came from a large, working class family.)   The beans came out of a can and the rice was white.  Granted, his family was likely eating far healthier than our family because they weren’t consuming quite as much processed foods as we were, but it still wasn’t exactly optimum nutrition.  His siblings are all far more healthy than mine, however, and they are much older.

We think we are raising our kids on a much more healthy diet than either of us grew up with, but being healthy has gotten way more difficult today than it used to be thanks to processed foods becoming the norm.  There is so much crap in most of what we feed our kids.  We don’t even know the half of it.

In general, however, my husband and kids eat far more healthfully than I do.  And that’s not good. My health is deteriorating rapidly.  I can barely walk anymore thanks to the excruciating pain of an old injury that has come back to haunt me.  Losing weight wouldn’t cure it, but it would at least make walking easier.  On a regular basis I feel scattered, disoriented, exhausted, and anxious.  My blood pressure is too high.  My blood sugar levels are too high.  And my weight is way too high.

All of these symptoms can be directly traced back to the stuff I’ve chosen to put in my mouth over the years.  True, I have more of a genetic disposition toward things like obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. than other people.   But I wasn’t somehow destined to have these problems.  I simply made choices that set them in motion.

I have the ability to make choices that can reverse them – if I haven’t let them go to far, already!  I can’t afford to wait any longer!

Now is the time to change.

Posted in Journal | 2 Comments

Pesto

Posted on July 15, 2010 by arulba

My neighbor came to the door tonight with a bunch of basil.  What a wonderful gift!  Immediately, I decided to make pesto so I did a google search and thankfully found that I had all the ingredients on hand.  It was easy to throw together and I’d definitely do it again in a  pinch, although I imagine there are better pesto recipes out there.

This recipe made enough that I was able to give my neighbor half of it and use the other half with a 16 oz. package of farfalle pasta which my son immediately gobbled up and came back for seconds the next day.  It was gone in no time.  It really was quite good, especially with a little extra sea salt ground on top of it.

  • 3 cups basil leaves, packed
  • 1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • 3/4 cup olive oil
  • salt and pepper to taste

Blend basil, walnuts, cloves, and Parmesan together in a blender.  Slowly add olive oil.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

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Roasted Veggie Casserole

Posted on July 14, 2010 by arulba

I wasn’t going to cook anything last night because we have plenty of leftovers, but I noticed that we had several vegetables that were looking like they needed to be eaten in the next few days or I’d be forced to throw them out.  I hate throwing out food!  I can barely believe now how much food we used to let go to waste.  I’ve become much more efficient about using what it is we purchase, and part of that is thanks to not being afraid to make my own concoctions.  Sometimes they flop, but sometimes they turn out quite good.  My concoction last night was quite good!  I’m writing this down because we usually have these sorts of veggies in the fridge and my family wants me to make it again, sometime.

You could probably add spices if you like, but the flavors blend beautifully with just salt and pepper.

  • 2-3  Tablespoons olive oil
  • 4 cloves of garlic, chopped
  • 4 cups sliced potatoes
  • 2 zucchinis, sliced
  • 1 yellow squash, sliced
  • 1 large onion, sliced
  • 1 green bell pepper, diced
  • 1 red bell pepper, diced
  • 2 large portobello mushrooms, sliced
  • 2 large tomatoes, sliced
  • 1 – 1 1/2 cups of parmesan (according to taste)
  • salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray bottom of casserole dish with canola or olive oil spray.  In a bowl, toss sliced potatoes with garlic and olive oil.  Arrange on potato slices on bottom of a 3 quart casserole dish (13 x9) or slightly larger, making sure to drizzle any leftover olive oil and garlic on the top.  Sprinkle with parmesan, salt and pepper.

Arrange a layer of zucchini and squash over potatoes.  Sprinkle with parmesan, salt and pepper.

Arrange onion over zucchini/squash layer.  Sprinkle with parmesan, salt and pepper.

Continue in this manner until all the rest of the veggies have been layered into the casserole dish.  Sprinkle parmesan, salt and pepper on top of the tomatoes.

Bake for 45 minutes.

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Cheddar Cauliflower Soup

Posted on July 13, 2010 by arulba

My husband loves cauliflower and I almost never buy it because he’s the only person in the family that ever wants it.  Plus, I don’t know what to do with cauliflower.  It’s such a strange vegetable!  For some crazy reason, probably because it was seriously on sale, I bought a huge head of it the other day.  It’s been sitting in the fridge for quite some time, begging to be turned into something.   I finally decided to try the Cheddar Cauliflower Soup recipe from EatingWell Magazine.  The only problem is that my husband can only tolerate so much milk and my daughter doesn’t like eating dairy at all.  Usually, I substitute milk for plain soy or rice milk, but we were out of both.  Thankfully, my husband reminded me that we have several cartons of Better than Milk in the pantry and I gave that it try.  It worked out great.

To make this so it worked for everyone in my family I altered the recipe a bit.  I used 3 Tablespoons of olive oil, 3 leeks, 5 cups chopped cauliflower, 3 cups soy milk (Better than Milk brand), 2 cups water, and 1 cup vegetable broth.   Everything else I kept the same except that after the soup had cooked for 8 minutes or so, I scooped about one-third of it out and put it aside for my daughter who can’t have dairy at all.  Then I added the other 1/2 cup of milk, flour, cheese and lemon to the remaining two-thirds of the soup for the rest of us.

It was a huge hit, even with my daughter who had second and is very happy to have leftovers for tomorrow.

  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 2 large leeks, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced and rinsed
  • 4 cups chopped cauliflower florets (from 1 medium head)
  • 2 1/2 cups low-fat milk, divided
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon white or black pepper
  • 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cups extra-sharp Cheddar cheese
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add leeks and cook, stirring, until very soft, about 5 minutes. Add cauliflower, 2 cups milk, water, bay leaf, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring often. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the cauliflower is soft, about 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, whisk the remaining 1/2 cup milk and flour in a small bowl. When the cauliflower is soft, remove the bay leaf and stir in the milk mixture. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring, until the soup has thickened slightly, about 2 minutes more. Remove from the heat. Stir in cheese and lemon juice.

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Avocado, Tomato and Mango Salsa

Posted on July 11, 2010 by arulba

This was another one of those recipes I discovered simply by entering some of the ingredients on hand into a google search that were going to go bad if I didn’t use them right away.  I had two mangoes, several tomatoes, and cilantro that was starting to sag a bit.  Once again, it was Allrecipes.com that came to the rescue and what a wonderful recipe this turned out to be.  We buy something similar at the grocery store that is maybe 1/4th the amount for $3.99 a pop!  I’m so glad to know I can make something my family claims is far better for a fraction of the cost!

  • 1 mango – peeled, seeded and diced (I ended up using two small mangoes)
  • 1 avocado – peeled, pitted, and diced
  • 4 medium tomatoes, diced
  • 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
  • 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
  • 1/4 cup chopped red onion
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil

Directions:

In a medium bowl, combine the mango, avocado, tomatoes, jalapeno, cilantro, and garlic. Stir in the salt, lime juice, red onion, and olive oil. To blend the flavors, refrigerate for about 30 minutes before serving.

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Quinoa with Carrots and Raisins

Posted on July 9, 2010 by arulba

I needed a side dish the other day and was in a hurry to create something.  I found a box of quinoa at the back of the pantry and quickly checked the quinoa recipes at AllRecipes.com to where I found this Quinoa with Carrots and Raisins recipe.  We had all of the ingredients except raisins and fresh cilantro, but I did have a handful of dried cranberries, so I decided it was worth giving the recipe a try.

I usually don’t like quinoa, but I loved this dish.  My daughter loved it too, and kept coming down to get leftovers.  I might have to double the recipe next time I make it just so there are plenty of leftovers.

Here’s the recipe…

  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 1 yellow onion, diced
  • 2 carrots, grated (we had a bag of matchstick carrots so I used those)
  • 1 1/4 cup raisins (I used about 1/4 cup of dried cranberries and we all felt it was plenty)
  • 1 Tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
  • 1 1/2 cups quinoa
  • 3/4 cup chopped cilantro (I used a few tablespoons of dried cilantro, fresh would have been better)
  • 1 1/2 cups orange juice
  • 1 1/2 cups water
  • 1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Cook and stir onion, carrots, raisins, and pumpkin pie spice until onion becomes golden, about 5 minutes. Stir in quinoa and cilantro and allow to toast for a few minutes. Pour orange juice and water in and stir well, bringing to a boil. Reduce heat cook until all the liquid is absorbed, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand for 5 minutes, then add walnuts. Fluff with a fork and serve.

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Chocolate Pudding

Posted on July 7, 2010 by arulba

My son was wanting chocolate pudding and we honestly tried to make a vegan version but the recipe we tried turned out horribly.  It called for plain soy yogurt, cocoa and sugar.  Not a good taste.  We tried adding a little vanilla.  Didn’t help.  Then salt.  Didn’t help.  Finally, a little Earth Butter, still not good.

We finally gave up and tried a somewhat more traditional recipe from Allrecipes.com called Hasty Chocolate Pudding that used traditional ingredients and a microwave.  (We altered slightly by adding a tablespoon of butter.)

OK, I know.  the picture looks awful.  Worse than awful, maybe.  But I promise, it doesn’t do it justice!  Had I seen this picture, I likely wouldn’t have bothered with this particularly recipe.  But I promise you!  The consistency and taste are both absolutely fantastic.

The only person who can actually eat more than just a spoonful of pudding in our family is my son, but we all had a spoonful (or two) and were wishing we could have a bowlful.  Of course, he’s happy we can’t!  Personally, I’m very glad to have an easy recipe that doesn’t require a jello mix!  (Even if it isn’t particularly pretty.  I’ll have to work on that!)

  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 3 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 2 cups milk
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  1. In a microwave-safe bowl, whisk together the sugar, cocoa and cornstarch. Whisk in milk a little at a time so the mixture does not have any dry lumps.
  2. Place in the microwave, and cook for 3 minutes on high. Stir, then cook at 1 minute intervals, stirring between cooking times for 2 to 4 minutes, or until shiny and thick. Stir in vanilla and melted butter.
  3. Place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pudding to prevent a skin from forming, and chill in the refrigerator. Serve cold.
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Southwestern Salad with Avocado-Lime Dressing

Posted on July 6, 2010 by arulba

Oh my goodness my family loved this salad!

It’s from the May/June 2010 issue of Vegetarian Times and we adapted it just slightly. The primary change was using soy sour cream rather than regular sour cream which makes it vegan.  We also used a little more corn than called for and way less dressing than what the recipe makes.

It’s worth making the entire amount of the dressing.  We used about half on the salad and then added just a tad more salsa and Tabasco sauce to the remaining dressing which turned out to be an absolutely fabulous chip dip!

Surprisingly, this salad is quite good left-over!  My husband put it over rice and took it to work and begged me to make it again.  It was so easy to make and didn’t involve having to turn on any heat source which is a wonderful thing when it’s 100 degrees outside.

I’ll definitely be making it again!

  • 2 cups chopped romaine lettuce or salad mix
  • 1 15oz can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1 cup grape tomatoes
  • 3/4 cup corn kernels (fresh or frozen/thawed)
  • 1/4 cup green onion, chopped fine
  • 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped fine
  • 1 ripe avocados
  • 3/4 cups salsa (prepared, not chunky)
  • 1/2 soy sour cream
  • 3 tablespoons lime juice
  • 4 drops Tabasco sauce
  • crushed corn tortilla chips

Combine the lettuce, beans, tomatoes, and corn in a large bowl. Sprinkle green onions and cilantro on top.

Mash avocado in a separate bowl, and whisk in salsa, sour cream, and lime juice.  Season with hot sauce, if using, and salt and pepper, if desired.

Pour about half of the dressing over the salad – reserve the rest for chip dip.  (See description above.)

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