Simply Simple Chicken Tortilla Soup

Again, I try to find basic recipes to make and if I can make my life any easier, I will- after all, that's what this whole thing is all about! 

On a chilly day when I was craving some warm, hearty soup and had a "to do list" a mile long and therefore, no spare hours that are required for making a time consuming soup, I decided to check out Tastefully Simple's Chicken Tortilla Soup mix 
( http://www.tastefullysimple.com/ ). 

I used it as sort of a base and just added some extra ingredients to make it what I NEEDED in that moment!  It turned out to be an amaaazing soup that satisfied my craving.... and honestly took about 30 mins. to prepare, so I thought I would just throw this idea out there...

 

The soup is sooo simple to make, that all it calls for is water and chicken (you can even use canned chunk chicken!). 

I decided to throw in the following ingredients to make the soup my own: 

a can of corn, a can of black beans, a can of chopped green chiles, fresh cilantro, and some Fiesta brand Quick Chili Mix powder for seasoning, but I'm sure any chili powder would do.

 I am in love with cilantro!!

 

 

 

 

And of course, top with sour cream, fresh cilantro, and some squirts of fresh lime juice!

Eat/top with tortilla chips or saltine crackers!

 

 

 

 <3 LML, loverofsoups.

Creamiest Cheese and Mac with Pork chops and Almond Green Beans

So I literally spent an entire day in the kitchen today and produced a tasty soup, part of dinner for tomorrow, and a complete dinner for tonight.  It was all part of my realization that I go back to work tomorrow after a long, relaxing Christmas break and again will be faced with the task of balancing my family life with my ever more demanding job.

 

I am trying to utilize my time as wisely as possible: on Saturdays I plan the menu for the week as well as the shopping list.  Sunday morning I hit the grocery store, and now decided that in addition to schoolwork on Sundays, I will be doing any meal prep for the week that I can. Today I made crockpot chicken so when I come home tomorrow night, I will only need to make rice.  I also made chicken tortilla soup that I will be taking in my lunch this week, as well as the meal that I am posting.  Feeling very accomplished today!

 

I have always looooved my mom's homemade Mac and cheese and have finally gotten around to creating my own recipe- pretty delicious!  

 

 

 

I made this for a nice sit-down Sunday night dinner because it does take some time to prepare.  I served this with my favorite pork chop recipe (see my earlier post "Weeknight Rush." from Oct. 12, 2012) and almond green beans.

 

Creamiest Cheese and Mac

 

3 cups elbow macaroni

2 cups milk

3 cups water

16 oz Velveeta Cheese block

Garlic salt

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Italian bread crumbs

Real bacon bits (optional)

 

 

Preheat oven to 375.  

 

Start boiling 2 cups milk, but be careful you don't over boil!  When the milk just starts to boil, add 3 cups of elbow macaroni.  Stir continuously and add 1 cup of water.  Keep stirring and when you see that the liquid has been reduced some, add the next cup of water. Continuously stir and add third cup of water when it looks like more liquid is needed.  Keep stirring and boiling until the noodles are cooked.  Reduce heat to low.  DO NOT drain milk/water!  

 

Cut the 16 oz. Velveeta block in half and add 8 oz. of the cheese to milk and noodles.  Stir, stir, stir until the block of cheese melts.  Add next half of cheese block and stir until melted.  As you are stirring, be sure you are scraping the bottom of the pot as the melting cheese burns super easily!  

 

 

Add 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese and stir until melted.  Sprinkle garlic salt into mixture to taste. Pour into 9x11 glass casserole dish and top with shredded mozzarella cheese and breadcrumbs.  

 

 

Bake for 20 mins.  Serve hot and add bacon bits if you wish!   SOOOO yummmmmy!

 

SERVE WITH....

 

Almond Green Beans

 

Fresh Green Beans

Walnut Oil

Tastefully Simple seasoned salt

Almond slivers

 

 

 

Cut, wash, and steam green beans.  In bowl while green beans are still hot, drizzle them with walnut oil and lightly salt with seasoned salt.  Add almond slivers and toss.

 

 

 

 

GETYOURCHEESEON!  <3LML

Brown Sugar and Garlic Soy Chicken with Broccoli and White Rice

  Not really any story behind this one- just a love and passion for food and a search for easy crockpot weeknight dinners!  So I tried the whole "leave something cook all day in the crockpot while you're at work" thing before, and I completely charred an entire batch of orange chicken and had to improvise when I got home, so chances are I won't do that again... I let this cook all day on a Sunday while I cleaned, did laundry, and school work.  It worked great and at the end of the night I put it into a Tupperware container and it was ready to go for Monday night dinner.  Monday we got home from school and all I had to do was cook the rice and defrost the broccoli, add it to the chicken and heat it!

Brown Sugar and Garlic Soy Chicken

4-5 chicken breasts (I used frozen)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2/3 cup vinegar
1/2 cup ginger ale
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
3 tablespoons minced garlic
Frozen chopped broccoli
White Rice
Crispy rice noodles


Mix soy sauce, vinegar, ginger ale, brown sugar, and garlic in a bowl. Put chicken in crockpot and pour mixture over chicken.  



Cook on low 6-8 hours or high 3-4 hours.  Make sure chicken is covered by mixture and spoon mixture over chicken.  Turn chicken and stir mixture, spooning it on top of chicken, approximately every hour.  I also sprinkled some brown sugar on top of chicken while it was cooking. 



Remove chicken and cut into chunks. (When I started to cut my chicken, it ended up shredding because it was so tender!)  If you don't want shredded chicken, make sure you pay attention to your chicken while it's cooking.  

Return chicken to liquid and sprinkle with more brown sugar and soy sauce.

Cook frozen broccoli according to package and add to chicken mixture.
Serve over white rice and top with crispy rice noodles!

 

 

The flavor of this sauce is AMAZING... let me know what you think!  <3LML

"Build your own sliders" Night: with sweet bacon and onion topping!

If there is one thing I love as much as I love pizza... and burritos... and tacos...and pasta...and every other food known to man, haha, is a good burger!!  And once again, the memories of my family, friends, and good people are there when I eat hamburgers...It sticks out in my mind how as a child, my brother would always order a hamburger with only ketchup when we went to McDonald's. I also remember that I could not even bare to swallow a bite of a McDonald's burger!  We would get home and my mom would make me open my mouth and spit out the hamburger meat that I had been storing in my cheeks because I was unable to swallow it.  Now, I am in looove with burgers and this love started with my mom cooking hamburgers on the grill at home...a burger at Big Dogs, date night at Jake's, New Year's Eve 2012- sooo many burger memories... mmmmm!

 

Lately, I have been trying all different types of burgers with a variety of toppings...my most recent favorite: the guacamole burger at Chili's.  This year for new year's eve, we experimented with stuffed burgers, but that will be a separate post on my blog later, because they were absolutely ridiculous!

 

Anyways, we decided to do the slider bar on a Sunday night, because we often grill and eat burgers, but wanted to change up the ol' routine a bit... 

 

Sliders

 

Ground meat

Italian bread crumbs

Lawry's seasoning

Ground black pepper

Tastefully Simple Garlic Garlic

Worcestershire Sauce

 

Combine ingredients from list with ground meat in large bowl and make "slider size" burgers.  GRILL.  Again, I apologize, but we don't usually measure... just thought I would list the ingredients that we used and you could just experiment to your liking!

 

 

Sweet Bacon and Onion Topping 



Chopped Onion
Cooked bacon
Brown Sugar

Chop onion.  Cook bacon and chop into small pieces.  Combine in pan and add brown sugar. Caramelize, mixing often until onion is clear and browned.

 

 

Burger Bar



Suggested toppings:

Ketchup, Mustard, Mayo
BBQ Sauce
Lettuce, Tomato, Onion
Jalapenos, Pickles
American, Swiss, Provolone Cheese
Sweet  Bacon and Onion Topping

We used Ciabatta Rolls for buns because they were the perfect size and delicious!  I basically laid out all the topping choices and each person chose the kind of cheese they wanted, then decided how they wanted their sliders topped... the kids LOVED it  and the combinations are endless- instead of having one big burger topped one way, you can have a few different burgers that are each unique!  It was nice to change things up a bit!

I could definitely see this as a party idea...

 

 

 

GET GRILLIN'  !  <3  LML