Summer Vegetable Chicken and Barley Soup

It was unseasonably cold here today. I expect July to be in the 90's and today it didn't even hit 80. This put me in the mood for soup. I know, not really soup weather, but I was being dramatic.

I decided to make a vegetable soup with barley and chicken, mostly because those were the ingredients that I had. So I dove into my fridge and pantry and pulled out whatever looked good.

The only chicken I had was frozen chicken breast so I stuck that in my cast iron pot and boiled it in salty water until I could shred it. Yes, I boiled the chicken. Because its easy, that's why.

I added a lot of garlic to my soup, like 6-8 cloves. I really like the stuff and my philosophy on it is there is no such thing as too much garlic. I didn't mince it either. I like finding a big chunk of it, so I just coarsely chopped it.

I have to confess, the only time I've ever had barley before was in a Campbell's condensed soup. You can understand my blasè attitude towards the grain. I'd always thought it mushy, but it didn't end up that way at all. In fact, next to the corn, it was my favorite component of the whole soup. 

The corn though, let me tell you about the corn. I got really lucky at WalMart today. They had really yummy corn. So juicy and sweet. So lucky. And it was perfect for this summery soup. After I cut all the kernels off the cob, I threw the cob in the pot too and let it simmer with all the veggies. Good move, me! Even my husband said he could taste the sweet corn flavor throughout the whole soup. That made me happy. Don't you just love it when something you decide to do on a whim turns out awesome?

This was such an easy soup, if only a little time consuming (the barley actually takes about 15 min to cook.) It really hit the spot. I served it with the left over pita bread from Tuesday, only I brushed them with some olive oil, sprinkled on some garlic powder, shredded Parmesan cheese, and dried rosemary and broiled it in my oven for a few minutes.

Yes, I know its basil in the picture. I changed my mind, OK?!?!

This soup did an excellent job of warding off the chill of this actually, perfectly mild weathered day.

Summer Vegetable Chicken and Barley Soup

2 Cups shredded chicken

1 onion, sliced and sauteed in olive oil

6-8 cloves of garlic, chopped and sauteed

2 small zucchini, slice and sauteed

4 cups chicken broth

add water to desired consistency 

dried thyme

dried rosemary

1 ear of corn (don't forget the cob!)

1 1/2 cups barley

2 tomatoes 

salt and pepper to taste

gyro gonna love this one!

Hehehe I crack myself up sometimes...

For various reasons, I always think to make homemade bread at around 3:30 in the afternoon. Its usually around the time I start to think about what I am going to make for dinner, and because, generally, at least one of the kids is napping at that time, I start feeling ambitious.

The problem with my timing is this; homemade bread usually takes more than an hour and a half to make. I mean seriously, how many times does this bread have to rise?!?! For this reason, I usually end up making something like cornbread or biscuits, breads that don't need time to rise (who am I kidding, I usually buy a loaf of french bread from the grocery store.) But not today! Today, I made whole wheat pitas. They take about 2 hours total which isn't terrible by homemade bread standards.

I found this recipe for whole wheat pita bread a few months ago, just after we moved and they turned out good the first time and AMAZING this time. I'm thinking my yeast might have not been any good last time because the bubbly mixture didn't look like this:

See? Nice and foamy, just like the recipe said.

I accidentally added all the water in the first step because I wasn't paying enough attention (little brother wasn't happy that mom was making bread and not snuggling him) and just dumped it all in. It didn't seem to hurt them. The other change I made is adding several tablespoons of flaxseed meal to the mix before I let it rise the second time. Its pretty awesome stuff and it added some cool texture to the bread.

So now I needed something to go in my pitas and what better than gyro meat?! Well I didn't have any ground lamb in my fridge, not something I generally have sitting around, but I did have some frozen turkey burger. Turkey is better for you anyways, right? So I stuck that in the microwave to thaw and while that was going I used my handy dandy food processor to shred an onion. There was a lot water from that so I scooped out those onions, put them in a cheesecloth and squeezed out all the moisture. They went back in the food processor (and I switched back to my pureeing attachment) along with the defrosted turkey, some salt, pepper, dried rosemary, thyme and oregano. This got pulverized into a meaty goo that did NOT photograph well. I sprayed some cooking spray in a loaf pan and patted the meat mixture into it (think meatloaf) and stuck it in a 375 degree oven for 30 min or so.

Its not particularly beautiful, but it sure was tasty! And who cares, it goes inside the gorgeous pitas which, by the way, looked like this:

All that was left to do was assemble the gyros: stick a thick slice or two of the meat on the pita, add some lettuce, tomato and Tzatziki sauce (I used store-bought Tzatziki because I already had some, but its not really very hard to make some at home.)

I think the only thing I would change would be to add some thinly sliced red onions, but it was really yummy and we estimated them to be about 280 calories each. Not too bad, I was definitely full after one.

Fish Tacos

I'm seriously lacking inspiration tonight. I think I used it all up cooking dinner, because dinner tonight ROCKED.

I had some frozen Mahi Mahi from Costco that I decided would work really well for fish tacos. The thing was, I don't think I've ever had fish tacos before. I've seen them often enough, but for some reason they just never sounded good to me before today. Weird, I know.

I knew I didn't want to fry the fish, I wanted something light and summery. So I grilled it with just a little salt and pepper. I love Mahi Mahi so much.

Now you can't just shove some fish in a tortilla and call it a fish taco, you have to have something else and that something else ended up being a black bean-mango salsa.
And it was awesome.
I dumped a can of rinsed black beans into a bowl then I added half a red bell pepper and half a green bell pepper, diced. Also a diced, small onion, some cilantro, lime juice, cumin, salt and pepper. I was lucky and had picked up some mangoes today that were really yummy, so I diced a couple of them up and threw them in too. I let it all set for a while while the fish cooked. I think that next time I would put some jalapeno in there to give it a little heat.

They turned out so pretty. They made me think of San Diego which made me happy because I love San Diego.

I heart my food processor

One Saturday morning, about 2 years ago, my husband made a quick run to the grocery store for some breakfast items. As he was headed out the door I jokingly yelled "bring me back a surprise!" (well only sort of jokingly. I really like surprises.) What he returned with changed my life. It was the Black and Decker Powerpro Food Processor.

OK, that's a little dramatic, but seriously, I love this thing. It turns anything I throw in it into a glorious puree of smooth, creamy goodness.

While I've loved my food processor since I opened its box, I have come to find a new appreciation for it as of late because my son started eating solid foods and when I say eating, I mean devouring. This kid is the exact opposite of his sister, who survives on roughly 100 calories per day. He will eat two medium sized jars of store bought baby food for breakfast and two for dinner and still be begging for more. And don't let him fool you, he doesn't skip a nursing session either. To put it simply, this kid loves food (I wonder where he could have gotten that...)
So, in an effort to save money and the poor environment from all those little plastic containers we were going through, I started making my own baby food.

This has turned out to be much simpler than I imagined (it takes me roughly an hour to make a week and a half's worth and freeze it) and a TON cheaper than buying it at the grocery store. Also, I like being able to pick out what produce actually goes into his food and I know its not wormy apples or something and he gets to try stuff that they don't usually sell in the store (this week I made him some figs.) Also it makes me feel good about myself, like I'm single handily saving the world/polar bears. This must be what it feels like to own a Prius.

Happy Birthday Bug!

Today is my daughter's 3rd birthday. I'm gonna be super cliche and say I can't believe that the last 3 years have gone by so fast. She's not a baby anymore, she's a big girl (which she reminds me every time I slip and call her Baby.) She's this amazing little person with the most personality per square inch of anybody I know.


When I asked the birthday girl what she wanted for her birthday breakfast she, of course, said "cupcakes!" Well it is her birthday, so I thought I would go with it, a little at least. I cheated and used some Krusteaz pancake mix because its fast and yummy. I threw some sprinkles in the mix though so it looked just like confetti cake batter. I cooked those babies up, topped them with a little cream cheese icing that I whipped up and added more sprinkles, of course.

It was a pretty big hit (which for her means that she ate some of it!). I think I'll always add sprinkles to my pancakes. Why not!?

Happy birthday to my Bug! Your Momma loves you SO MUCH!

Stuffed Peppers

Stuffed bell peppers are one of those things that I never remember having had before I was an adult. I talked to my mom the other day and she said that she used to make them when I was a kid, but for the life of me I can't remember having them. Its weird because I really do LOVE them. Before, I made them with hamburger and couscous, which wasn't terrible for us I guess, but when I decided to make them again last week I thought "I can go lighter!" 

Costco had bags of six red bell peppers for a smokin' deal so I used those. I like them better than the green ones, don't you?

Instead of couscous, I used quinoa (I just learned today that its pronounced kin-wah, so yea I've been sounding like a moron all week bragging about my kwi-noah stuffed peppers) which is awesome because not only does it have lots of fiber and other nutrients, its a complete protein, which is really hard to find in a plant. 

So I cooked the quinoa in my rice cooker. While that was going, I sauteed up a yellow onion and some garlic. Then I dumped in a can of diced tomatoes, juice and all, and let that simmer while the quinoa finished cooking. When the quinoa was finished, I dumped it into the pan (btw, I used a really big skillet for the onion/tomato mixture) and then seasoned it with sea salt, pepper, and garlic powder. I mixed it all up, stuffed it in my emptied-out peppers, put them into a baking dish, sprinkled just a tiny amount of mozzarella cheese on top and stuck them in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or so, just till the cheese was nice and melty.

What came out of my oven was a beautiful, protein packed, vegetarian's delight!

The picture turned out kind of dark because I'm using my iPhone, but I think you can appreciate the beauty of its meat-free yumminess.

I threw a little cottage cheese in there with it (AWESOME move) and dug in. Delish! It was a filling but light summery meal.