Split Pea Soup

  My friend Kristie made some Split Pea Soup the other day for a coffee lunch at her house.  I had never in my 41 years of life tasted pea soup because I hate peas.  My friends convinced me I should at least give it a taste.  They said it didn't taste anything like peas.  My friends were right; the soup was delicious.  I'm glad I tried it.  This a very filling dish and the leftovers can be frozen.

Here's the recipe.  It's pretty simple to make and is perfect for a chilly day.
Serves 4-6
2 - 32oz cartons of chicken broth
1 - 16oz bag of split peas
2-2.5 Cups Diced ham
1 heaping cup carrots sliced
3 cloves of crushed garlic
1 Cup diced onions
2 Cups diced potatoes
salt and pepper to taste

Put all the ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low and simmer until peas and veggies are soft (about an hour).

My family likes our soup thick.  If you want a thinner style soup add more broth to thin it after simmering.
That's it!  Pretty easy huh?

Beef Stroganoff

I love vintage cookbooks, especially anything pre-1960s.  Yesterday I had some sirloin steak I needed to cook. I was going to make Pepper Steak with it, but my 12 year old son was protesting profusely so I decided I would look in my cookbooks and see if I could find something else to do with the steak.

In a booklet dated 1954 for a dairy company called Knudsen, I found a Beef Stroganoff recipe that I just happened to have all the ingredients for.  It was decided; that would be dinner.  Mys son, who protests pretty much everything these days, scoffed at the news of this new dinner.  He had never had it;  He just didn't like the name.  I made it anyway and guess what?  He loved it!

If my son likes it, I'm sure pretty much anyone will because he doesn't like much.  It was really good.  It was pretty easy to make too.  There was enough to feed three adults, two kids, and have leftovers for lunch today.  I don't have any pictures to show you, but I will share the recipe.  I am going to post the original recipe although, I did modify it slightly when I made it.   I will just add some notes in at the end of how I changed it up.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds thin sirloin steak
1/2 t salt
1/8 t garlic salt
1/2 t paprika
1/8 t pepper
1 small onion, chopped
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup sliced mushrooms
1 cup bouillon
1 small bay leaf
1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
16oz Sour Cream
cooked rice

Directions
Cut steak into 2-inch squares, season with salts, paprika, and pepper.  Brown with onion in butter.  Add mushrooms and brown them a few minutes, then add bouillon, bay leaf, and worcestershire sauce.  Simmer about 15 minutes.  Place rice on a serving plate and place cooked meat pieces on rice.  Add sour cream to sauce in pan and heat, stirring constantly.  Pour over rice and meat.  Serve at once.  Serves 6.

My Notes
I only used an 1/8 t of salt.  I used about 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder instead of the garlic salt.  I also chopped up a clove of fresh garlic and added that.  I add fresh garlic to pretty much everything.  I forgot to season the meat before I put it in the pan so I just threw all the spices in the pan with the meat and onions and stirred it up real well.   I did not use the butter at all for the meat and onions.  It really wasn't needed.

I didn't have any bay leaf so I skipped adding that in (obviously).  For the bouillon, I used a cup of water and a veggie bouillon cube.  Veggie was all I had, otherwise, I would have used beef bouillon.

I used a slotted spoon to pick the meat pieces out, but I put them on a plate and set aside.  When I added the sour cream I also added about 1/2 t of sage.  I used sage because I didn't have a bay leaf and I remember making a stroganoff before that called for sage and it being good. After the sour cream was stirred in and heated well, I added the meat back to the sauce.

We did serve it over white rice individually.  If you can have gluten, I think egg noodles would be just as good as rice.

More Green Smoothie Attempts

I am really loving these green smoothies for breakfast.  My favorite is definitely Blueberries, strawberries, bananas, spinach, milk, greek yogurt, and honey.  I have made attempts at other flavors that didn't quite work out so well.  I thought I'd share them with you so you didn't make the same mistakes.

First, I really wanted to try peach and mango together.  So I put some frozen peaches and frozen mangos in the blender with the spinach and added the usual milk, yogurt, and honey.  It didn't taste so good, so I added a banana.  It was better and then I realized duh...should've used orange juice instead of milk.   I drank about half of it, but it was really too milky tasting for me.  I mean it wasn't horrible and if you like milk it would probably be okay, but it just wasn't for me.

I was going to try the peach and mango smoothie again this morning with O.J., but I am out of bananas.  I am also out of berries so I decided to try chocolate.  I first used one package of Carnation Instant Breakfast, a cup of milk, a half cup of yogurt, and lots of spinach.  I added the yogurt thinking oh it will be like ice cream and taste like a shake.  Yeah, not so much.  It tasted too much like plain yogurt.

Since I wasn't wasting a lot of expensive fruit, I dumped it all out and started over.  This time, I put in the Carnation Instant Breakfast, a cup of milk, a bunch of spinach, and a half cup of ice.  It was too watery so I added a second packet of Carnation Instant Breakfast.  Found a keeper!   Now this chocolate smoothie makes half as much as the berry smoothie did and had about the same amount of calories.  It also didn't fill me up quite as much as the berry smoothie normally does, but I think it would do if I was desperate.

Berry Green Monster Smoothie

I have a serious addiction to Pinterest.  These Green Monster Smoothies are all the rage over there right now.  So I decided to give it a try.

Basically, a green smoothie is any smoothie with a whole lot of spinach added to it.  Mine isn't green, but I have a feeling that is because of the color of the fruit I chose.  Actually, mine looks a lot like a glass of puke.  Doesn't that sound appetizing?  I swear it's really good.   I had my Mom and Dad both taste it and my Mom drank the whole glass.

There are probably a hundred different ways to make this and apparently some of them are actually green.  I got my inspiration from this photo found over at Sing For Your Supper. 

Now that looks good doesn't it?  I didn't exactly follow her recipe though.   

I used:

1 small banana sliced

about 5 strawberries cut into chunks

about 1/4 cup blueberries

about 1/2 cup raspberries

about 1/4 cup plain greek yogurt

about 2T honey

about 1 cup milk

and a large handful (easily a cup) of spinach

I threw it all in a blender until it was a smoothie.  It makes about two 16oz glasses (maybe less not sure of the size of my glasses).  You CAN NOT taste the spinach in any way shape or form.  So if you don't like veggies this is a good way for you to get them in.  I think this is something I need to make for my kids for breakfast since they aren't fans of traditional breakfasts or breakfast foods.

Chicken Fajitas

I love fajitas, but I don't like big chunky peppers.  I also like A LOT of peppers and onions on my fajitas.  I feel like I never get enough  My kids will eat the chicken, but don't like peppers or onions.  To accommodate all of us I decided to get a little creative in the kitchen.

You will need:
4-5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 red bell peppers; very finely chopped
2 medium sweet or yellow onions; very finely chopped
oil
shredded cheddar cheese
fajita seasoning
rice
flour or corn tortillas

The peppers and onions can be chopped ahead of time. Raw peppers and onions also freeze well.  You could chop them up and freeze them in a freezer bag when you have time so they are ready to go when you want fajitas.  Because I have O.C.D., I chop all my vegetables by hand so each piece is the same size and shape.  But, for those of you without O.C.D., a food chopper or food processor also works.

Cook the rice according to package directions.  While the rice is cooking, add the onions and peppers to a skillet with a small amount of oil.

Saute the onions and peppers over medium heat until soft; stirring frequently.  I sauteed mine for about 20 mintues. When the veggies are softened turn up the heat and cook a little longer to get them slightly browned.   Remove veggies from the pan.

I refuse to cook with raw chicken so I start with frozen chicken breasts, boil them, and then cut them up.  I boiled the chicken the night before and then sliced it up right before heating. Yes, I even shred my cheese by hand.

Put the chicken in the same pan you used for the veggies.  Sprinkle fajita seasoning on the chicken (about 1tsp) and heat through.  Obviously if you use raw chicken this step will take longer than it did for me.

Since I can't eat flour tortillas, I also have to fry the corn tortillas.  The man tried the fajitas with both flour and corn tortillas.  He said he couldn't decide which was better, because the tortillas each had different flavors.  If you decide to try corn tortillas you just heat up some oil in another skillet, put a tortilla in for a minute and flip for a minute.  Stack between paper towels to cut out some of the grease.

To serve: lay a tortilla flat on a plate, add a thin layer of white rice, followed by a layer of shredded cheese.  Put desired amount of chicken in the middle of the tortilla and top with the desired amount of the pepper/onion mixture.  Fold in half and enjoy!

If you cook the chicken and chop the veggies before hand and you aren't using minute rice, the rest of the process should be completed in the time it takes to cook the rice.

Ken's Chicken Angelo

I had never heard of Chicken Angelo until our friend Ken made it for us.   It's a little different than recipes I've found on the internet for Chicken Angelo, that's why I named this Ken's Chicken Angelo.


Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts; cooked and cut into bite sized pieces

2 12oz or 4 6ozjars of quarted, marinated artichoke hearts; drained

2 2.25oz cans of sliced black olives; drained

16oz whole fresh mushrooms sliced 

1 lemon

olive oil

Shredded Parmesan or Romano cheese

Directions:

Coat a deep skillet with olive oil.  Add chicken, artichoke hearts, mushrooms, and olives.  Cut lemon in half and squeeze both halves into the pan.  Cook on low about 10-12 minutes.   Serve with pasta and top with the cheese.

Notes:

- You can cut up the chicken and fry it.  I prefer to boil the chicken and then cut it up.

- The recipe originally called for canned mushrooms, but I much prefer fresh mushrooms.

- Ken served this dish with angel hair pasta.  I prefer bow tie pasta.  

- Next time I make this I will probably also add a couple cloves of chopped garlic because garlic is good in everything.  I think a jar of roasted red peppers would also be a nice addition.