New Chili Recipe

I tried a new chili recipe last night and we really enjoyed it.  I mentioned it to one of my daughters and she asked that I post it on this blog.  Here it is.  It is from the Weight Watchers Website as is the picture.

Turkey, Bean and Vegetable Chili

Ingredients

2 spray(s) cooking spray

1 pound uncooked 93% lean ground turkey

1 medium uncooked onion, chopped

2 cloves medium garlic, minced

2 large uncooked carrots, chopped

2 ribs, medium, uncooked celery, chopped

1 medium yellow pepper, chopped

1 medium uncooked bell pepper, orange-variety, chopped

1 Tbsp. chili powder

1 Tbsp. paprika

2 tsp. ground cumin

1 tsp. dried oregano

1/2 tsp. table salt

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper, optional

29 oz. fat-free, reduced sodium chicken broth

29 oz. canned diced tomatoes, with mild green chiles

15 1/2 oz. canned kidney beans, drained and rinsed

15 oz. fat-free canned refried beans

Instructions

Coat a 12-inch saute pan with cooking spray; set over medium-high heat.  Brown turkey, breaking up meat with a wooden spoon as it cooks, about 10 minutes; drain and set aside.

Coat a large pot with cooking spray; set over medium heat.  cook onion, stirring occasionally, until soft but not browned, about 5 minutes.  Add garlic; cook, stirring 1 minute. Add carrots, celery and peppers; cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes.  Add chili powder, paprika, cumin, oregano, salt and cayenne; stir for 1 minute.

Stir in broth, tomatoes, both types of beans and turkey; bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, stirring every 5 minutes, about 35 minutes total.  Yields about 1 1/2 cups chili per serving.

Notes

If you like your chili spicy, make sure to add the cayenne pepper.  if you prefer your chili on the milder side, leave out the cayenne pepper and use plain diced tomatoes, instead of ones with green chilies.

My note.  Next time I make it, I'll add a green pepper also, for a more variety in color.  I also made it without the cayenne and tomatoes with green chilies.  I used diced tomatoes.   It was mild and very tasty.  I put Parmesan cheese on the table to sprinkle on the chili, if desired.

FYI to WW devotees It is 5 PointsPlus value per serving.
Yield: 8 servings

Go to the Weight Watchers website.  I haven't been disappointed in any of their recipes.  (Ummm...  there was a Pan-Fried Flounder recipe that we weren't too crazy about though.)

Parmesan Baked Tomatoes

I love tomatoes! Especially the funky organic genetically unaltered heritage breed that cost an arm and a leg in the summertime. Someday, I will successfully grow those big beautiful babies, but in the meantime, I will just sit and dream about them every time I make these Parmesan Baked Tomatoes. They are so darn easy to make! They are good by themselves, or add them to a slice of toasted Sourdough Bread with a little Mayo or better yet, ground up Garbanzo beans as a Mayo substitute.
What you need:
4-6 Tomatoes, washed & sliced in half.
2-4 Tsp freshly chopped up Oregano to taste
Salt & Pepper to taste
Olive Oil
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Place tomatoes, juicy sides up, in a jelly roll pan. Top with cheese, oregano, S&P, and lightly drizzle with olive oil. Bake until tomatoes are tender, about 15-20 minutes. Its that easy! And you will get all kinds of goodness out of the deal: potassium, calcuim, vitamins like A & D, good stuff like that. Use the extra time you saved making these yummys to sit and SAVOR the flavor.
Enjoy! Love, Katharina

Easy Bake Rolls

Sometime has come.  I made a batch of my rolls this morning so we could have some with the wonderful soup that I made yesterday for dinner tonight.  Here is the recipe.

Easy Bake Rolls

1 pkg. yeast, 1/4 cup warm water (combine, set aside)

1 stick butter, melted

3/4 cup milk

2 eggs

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp. salt

4 cups flour (or a little less)

In 1/4 cup warm water, dissolve the yeast and set aside.

In a sauce pan melt the butter.  Mix together the milk, eggs, sugar, and salt.  Add this to the melted butter and stir to combine.  Heat till warm, stirring to keep the eggs from cooking into clumps.

After pouring the butter/milk/egg mixture into the mixing bowl, mix in 2 cups of the flour.

Add the yeast mixture, then the remaining flour. (1 1/2 to 2 cups). I use a mixer that has a dough hook.  I use the dough hook after adding the yeast, when mixing in the remaining flour.  Beat the dough on high speed for a few minutes to "knead" it well. The dough will be very soft. The refrigeration process enables it to be rolled out and handled without adding too much additional flour. So don't be alarmed that it looks like it needs more flour added at this point.

Place the dough in a large, greased bowl.  Cover loosely with plastic wrap and and a towel.  Put in refrigerator for 6 - 8 hours to thoroughly chill the dough.

Divide the dough in half.  Roll each half into a large circle on a floured board.  Cut like a pizza into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece from the large end to the point.  Place on a greased pan with the point on the bottom. (Optional: Brush with milk and sprinkle with poppy seeds.)  Let rise for 2 hours. (Depends on how warm your kitchen is.  Sometimes I put a small pan of water in the oven with the rolls and turn on the oven to 400 degrees for 1 minute then turn the oven off.  This helps the rolls raise faster.)

Ready to raise

 

Ready to bake

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes.  You may switch the pans half way through to help each pan brown evenly.  I put 12 rolls on a jellyroll pan.  I use 2 pans.  This recipe makes 2 dozen rolls.

I like to brush melted butter on the finished rolls when I take them out of the oven, then cover with a towel to keep them soft.

Chicken Soup for the Soul

We all know that chicken soup is good for the soul.  As a matter of fact, there are books with that phrase in the title.

I happen to believe that chicken soup is one of the best comfort foods when the weather gets chilly.  I've been making huge batches of my favorite recipe and I'm going to share my recipe and take photos as I do it.  Here goes. First the recipe...

Sandy's Chicken Soup with Homemade Noodles



1 - 2 1/2 - 3 lb ready to cook broiler, fryer chicken, cut up

3 quarts water

1 medium onion, quartered

a few sprigs of parsley (I use the dried kind)

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. whole black peppers

2 cups uncooked fine noodles

1 cup diced celery

1/2 cup shredded carrots

2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. dried thyme, crushed

1/4 tsp. dried oregano, crushed

Place chicken in Dutch oven, or deep kettle.  Add next five ingredients.  Simmer, covered for one hour.  Remove chicken from broth. Cool and remove meat from bones; dice meat.  Strain broth; return to kettle.  Bring stock to boiling; add remaining ingredients, except chicken.  Return to boil.  Cook, covered, stirring occasionally for 10 minutes or until the noodles are tender.  Add chicken; heat.  Makes 2 1/2 quarts.



I use organic chicken



Cutting up the chicken






Removing the skin

 I've adjusted the recipe a bit. I put in some celery stalks with the initial cooking and after straining the broth I add some more parsley, additional chopped onion and celery when adding the carrots. I use a pepper grinder instead of whole black peppers. Also, I supplemented the water with some chicken broth.
When removing the skin, to get a better grip, I use a paper towel to grasp the skin.



Some of the onions and celery







 




Beginning the one hour cook time









Simmering








Homemade Noodles

Don't be afraid to make your own noodles as it is really easy and so much better than the packaged ones!  Here goes...

1 beaten egg

2 Tbls. milk

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup all purpose flour

In a mixing bowl, combine egg, milk and salt.  Stir in enough flour to make a soft dough.  Cover and let rest for 10 minutes.  On a floured surface roll dough to a 16" x 12" rectangle.  Let stand for 20 minutes.  Using a pizza cutter or knife, cut into 1/4" slices. Let dry for 2 hours. (I have used them right away though.) They can then be stored in an airtight container and refrigerated till needed.  I only make them when I need them, so I haven't put them in the fridge.

When the soup is boiling good, dropping a few at a time so as to prevent them from sticking together, add the noodles to the broth and cook uncovered for 8 - 10 minutes.  Lower the heat and simmer while the noodles cook.  This recipe can be made with 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup white flour. 



Mixing the egg, milk and salt



Mixing in the kamut flour







As an alternative I used Kamut flour instead of the white flour for a batch of soup.  I found that about 3/4 cup of the Kamut flour is sufficient.  The rest of the ingredients remain the same.  The noodles turned out very well and would be a good substitute for people who are avoiding gluten.



After cutting, spead out to dry



If you have a pasta roller, it makes the job a little easier, but isn't necessary to make great noodles.







Rolling the dough, multiple times



Cutting the noodles

 



Here is the finished product, ready to freeze.  I made a very large batch to have a few meals in the freezer.  I serve this soup with my homemade rolls.  I'll post that recipe sometime.

Yummy!

Salmon Anyone?

I was not raised near the ocean and fresh seafood.  The only fish I ate was canned tuna and canned salmon, which my mother made salmon loaf out of.  We also had catfish and bullheads that we caught fishing in the local rivers.  They had tons of bones which I didn't like and I never would eat the salmon loaf she made. I didn't like it and grew up determined that I didn't like salmon.  Now that I've had fresh or frozen salmon, I have changed my mind somewhat.  Fish still isn't my favorite food but I have found a terrific salmon recipe that just begs to be prepared once or twice a month.  We're told to add more fish to our diets and you might like to make this recipe that I got from a Weight Watcher's cookbook.  Again, try it and let me know what you think.

Salmon with Coconut-Tomato Sauce

2 teaspoons canola oil

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 tablesppon minced peeled fresh ginger

1 garlic clove, minced

1/2 cup drained canned petite diced tomatoes

1/2 cup light (reduced-fat) coconut milk

Pinch cayenne

12 cherry tomatoes, halved

1 pound skinless salmon fillets, cut into 1-inch pieces

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons lime juice

3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

1.  Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium high heat.  Add onion and cook, stirring often, until softened, about 5 minutes.  Add ginger and garlic and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, 30 seconds.  Add diced tomatoes, coconut milk, and cayenne; bring to simmer and cook, covered, 5 minutes.

2.  Add cherry tomatoes to skillet and simmer just until tomatoes begin to soften, 1-2 minutes.  Sprinkle salmon with salt.  Add salmon and lime juice to skillet and cook, stirring gently, until salmon is just opaque in center, 3-4 minutes.  Stir in cilantro.

Serving suggestion.  To soak up the creamy coconut sauce, serve the salmon with brown rice. (2/3 cup cooked brown rice per serving will increase the PointsPlus value by 3).

Serving size 1 cup     6 PointsPlus value

250 Cal. 13 g. Total Fat, 1 g Sat Fat, 0 g Trans Fat, 72 mg Chol, 423 mg Sod, 7 g Carb, 3 g Sugar, 1 g Fib, 27 g Prot., 31 mg Calc.

Alternate stuffing recipe

My mom used bread stuffing in our holiday turkeys and it wasn't until I married my husband that I was introduced to Wild Rice Stuffing.  Since our marriage I have used this instead of the bread stuffing that most of us are familiar with.  I got this recipe from my mother-in-law.  I hope that you might try it sometime.  It also makes a great side dish for other meals.

WILD RICE DRESSING

1 pkg. Wild Rice-a-Roni.

1 can water chestnuts (chopped)

1 small can mushrooms (chopped)

1 onion (chopped)

1 stalk celery (chopped)

1 chicken bouillon cube dissolved in the water. (This year we used chicken stock instead of the water called for.  In this case you don't need the bouillon cube.)

Saute the vegetables in a little butter (since this is supposed to be a healthy food blog, I suppose you could substitute the butter for a healthy oil, but we haven't tried that.)  Add the Rice-a-Roni mix and use 1/4 cup less liquid than called for.  You can also cook up the giblets ahead of time and chop them up and add too, if you'd like. Add the spice mix included in the Rice-a-Roni pkg. and simmer until the liquid is mostly absorbed.  It is then ready to put into the turkey, or used as a side dish. 

I know that Rice-a-Roni uses some ingredients in their spice mix, (Like MSG) that some people try to avoid.  With this in mind I think that any wild rice medley could be used and your own spices added.  This is a great recipe and with some tweaking could be even better, health-wise.  It is also great for folks who have to avoid bread because of the gluten.

Let me know if you try this and what changes, if any, you make.

Happy Eating!

Long time no blog!

Hi fans of Pink Smoothie Girls.

It's been many months since my last post.  We've had some illness issues with a member of our little group and things have slowed down.  But I do want to share a great recipe that I made today.  It makes 9 quarts and so I froze some.

Pasta E Fagioli

For those who are fans of Olive Garden, I've found a knock off recipe for their Past E Fagioli soup.  One of the great things is that it is one of their less fat and calorie laden menu items.  Another great thing is that I'm able to adjust the spices to our tastes.  Here is the recipe.  I hope you try it and enjoy it as much as we did.

Pasta E Fagioli

INGREDIENTS

3 tsp. oil

2 lbs. ground beef

12 oz. onion, chopped

14 oz. carrots, slivered

14 oz. celery, diced

48 oz. tomatoes, canned, diced

2 c. cooked red kidney beans

2 c. cooked white kidney beans

88 oz. beef stock

3 tsp. oregano

2 1/2 tsp. pepper

5 tsp. parsley, (fresh chopped)

1 1/2 tsp. Tabasco sauce

48 oz. spaghetti sauce

8 oz. dry shell pasta, or other pasta

PREPARATION:

Saute beef in oil in large (10-qt.) pot until beef starts to brown.  Add onions, carrots, celery and tomatoes and simmer for about 10 minutes.  Drain and rinse beans and add to the pot.  Also add beef stock, oregano, pepper, Tabasco, spaghetti sauce, and noodles.  Add chopped parsley.  Simmer until celery and carrots are tender, about 45 minutes.

This recipe may be divided for smaller families needs.

Nutrition:

per cup 219 calories, 9g fat, 24 g carbohydrates, 10g protein.

This recipe is from CDKitchen http://www.cdkitchen.com/

We are not "hot" lovers in our house, so I made some adjustments in the recipe.  A few turns of the pepper mill, not 2 1/2 tsp of pepper and NO Tabasco sauce.  I also used a quart plus one pint of our home canned spaghetti sauce.  I also didn't make a big deal of the "sliced, slivered, chopped" directions for the carrots onions and celery. I used my food processor blade and chopped everything the same.  I did them separately, as all 3 wouldn't fit in the bowl of the processor.  It made short work of that tedious part of the preparation. I also used dried parsley, not fresh.

Please give feedback and tell me if you like this recipe.