Cabbie’s Cooking

CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP

Put four or five boneless chicken tenderloins in a saucepan. Cover with water, add a chopped onion and some grated carrots. Season with salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning. Bring to a boil. When chicken is cooked, remove it from the pan and cool. Once it is cool, dice the chicken and add it back to the pot. Add a handful of egg noodles and cook until the noodles are done. You can add a little yellow food coloring to make it look nicer, you can also add some chicken stock if you need more volume, and you can add a little flour or corn starch to thicken it. Yum!  Simple and quick.

I’ve been on a recipe kick recently. I just made a pot of taco soup to take to church tomorrow. A group from another church will be there, and so we’re having a pot luck dinner for them (and us) after the church service.

This a recipe I got from one of my nieces about five years ago. I’ve made it many times since then - for family and for company. It is delicious, and it’s ridiculously easy. Here it is:

TANTALIZING TACO SOUP
1-pound ground beef
1 chopped onion
2 cans diced tomatoes (not crushed)
1 can corn
1 can tomato soup
Up to 2 tomato soup cans of water (as desired)
1 can kidney beans
1 can tomato sauce
1 package taco seasoning (hot or mild, depending on your taste)Brown the ground beef and onion together. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer. Serve with toppings like corn chips, sour cream, salsa, grated cheese. You can also substitute salsa for one can of diced tomatoes.

Don’t get too hung up on exact quantities of everything. Tonight I “kinda” doubled it - I doubled some ingredients and added just a little extra of others, depending on what I had on hand - and it still tasted wonderful. It’s nice to serve with little bowls of grated cheese, salsa, sour cream and corn chips beside it. That way everyone can “doctor it” the way they like it.

Yesterday, RT and I flew to Georgia to visit my mother for awhile.  Out of our seven siblings (of which I’m the median one) - five were there.  My sister-in-law, Vicki, made a HUGE pot of chicken and dumplings.  I love chicken and dumplings.  It’s the ultimate comfort food, and it’s really good for you.  Here’s an easy recipe for homemade chicken and dumplings.

You’ll need:

1 can refrigerated biscuit dough  (If you really like dumplings, you can use 2 cans.  It just depends on how much you’re making.  There’s no hard and fast rule here.  Vicki made such a huge pot of chicken and dumplings, she probably used five or more cans!)

chicken (a package or two of boneless chicken or a whole chicken.  I usually make sure there’s some dark meat in the mix because it adds so much more flavor)

chicken stock (one or two cans of chicken broth)

salt, pepper, poultry seasoning

1 onion

2 carrots

2 stalks celery

1 cup plain flour

Place the chicken in a large pot and cover with water.  Add the chopped onion, grated carrot and finely chopped celery to the water.  (If you happen to have bell peppers - green, yellow, or red - you can chop some of that finely to add color and flavor).  Season to taste with salt, pepper and poultry seasoning. Simmer until the chicken is well cooked.  Remove the chicken from the pot and let the chicken cool.  Leave the vegetables in the pot with the liquid.  Once the chicken is cool, remove the meat from the bone and cut or tear into bite size pieces.  Set the chicken aside.

Place the flour in a small bowl.  Open the can of biscuits and cut/break each biscuit into about 8 pieces.  Put the pieces into the flour and coat well.  The flour is what thickens the liquid.  So use it generously.

Bring the reserved liquid to a boil.  Add additional chicken stock, if desired.  It depends on how much chicken and dumplings you are making.  Sometimes I add a drop or two of yellow food coloring to make it “prettier.”

Once it is at a rolling boil, drop the biscuit pieces into the liquid one at a time.  Stir gently to keep them from sticking to the bottom.  Make sure each biscuit piece is well coated with flour before dropping it into the liquid.  After it has simmered for awhile, add the chicken back to the liquid, and it’s ready to serve.  Prepare a salad or vegetable, and you’ve got a perfect meal. 

I made chicken rice soup last night, and it was really good.  I didn’t follow a particular recipe.  I just added what I had on hand that sounded good.  This is virtually fat-free and is just oozing with good health.  Here’s what I did:

Chicken-Rice Soup

1 boneless/skinless chicken breast

2 boneless/skinless chicken thighs (I like using some dark meat because it is more flavorful than the white meat and seems to make for tastier soups and stews)

1 can chicken broth

grated carrots (about a cup)

1 large onion, diced

2 stalks celery, diced

1/4 cup each of diced green, yellow and red peppers

parsley (to taste - probably a couple tablespoons)

poultry seasoning (to taste - about a teaspoon)

salt and pepper (to taste)

1/4 cup brown rice, uncooked

In a large pot, cover the chicken with water and cook over medium/high heat.  As the chicken is starting to cook, slice/dice/shred the vegetables and add to the pot. 

Add all the other ingredients, except the rice.

Once the chicken is well cooked, remove it from the pot.  Once it has cooled, either shred or chop it.  Then return the chicken to the pot.  Bring the chicken and vegetables to a strong boil.

Add the rice, turn the heat to low, cover the pot and cook until the rice is tender.  Serve with crackers or cornbread.

You can also add a can of diced tomatoes to the soup for a little flavor.  I love tomatoes, and so that’s what I did yesterday, and the soup is REALLY good.  However, it would have been just as good without them - just good in a different way.

If you like soup with a thicker broth, you can add a teaspoon or two of EITHER corn starch of all-purpose flour to thicken it.  Some people add a couple tablespoons of instant potato flakes to thicken a soup.  It’s good whether or not you thicken the broth.

Last year I wrote about what I make for a New Year’s Day meal.  The meal is filled with tradition and symbolism.  I can’t think of a better way to start a new year of living. Since I enjoyed last year’s New Year’s Day meal so much, I thought I would re-print that menu and description of symbolism here.  Enjoy!

On each New Year’s Day, I cook my version of a New Year’s Day meal. Here’s the menu, the recipes and the symbolism - some serious and some definitely tongue-in-cheek:

Menu
Hoppin’ John

Tossed Salad

Cornsticks

Sweet Iced Tea

Recipes

Hoppin’ John

1 can mild tomato/jalopena mixture (RoTel) If you like things a little spicier, use regular RoTel.

2 cans black-eyed peas

1 can diced tomatoes (optional - I love tomatoes)

1/2 lb link of turkey sausage

Cut the turkey sausage into bite-size pieces - dump everything together and cook. You can serve this over rice or mix some rice in it, or eat it by itself with no rice. It’s delicious riceless or not.

Tossed Salad

Lots of lettuce, sliced tomatoes, grated carrots, diced bell peppers with grated cheddar cheese on top.

Cornbread Sticks

2 cups cornmeal MIX

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 egg, well-beaten

buttermilk (enough to make a good batter)

Pour into cast iron cornstick pans that have been sprayed with Pam and pre-heated in a 425 oven. The batter should sizzle when you pour it into the pans. Bake until golden brown. Serve hot. I like to crumble a cornstick or two into my hoppin’ john.

Sweet Iced Tea

4 family-size tea bags

1 gallon distilled water (You don’t HAVE to use distilled water, but that’s what I always use).

1 cup Splenda

Put the tea bags in a 4-cup measuring cup, fill with some of the water and microwave on high for about 6 minutes. Let it sit (steep) for about 5 minutes. Pour into a pitcher and add the remaining water to make one gallon. Add the Splenda and stir. DELICIOUS and refreshing!

SYMBOLISM

The blackeyed peas in the Hoppin’ John symbolize coins - a sign of prosperity for the new year. May there be lots of that in 2008. The turkey sausage symbolizes my American heritage - the wild turkeys from the first Thanksgiving. For me, it also reminds me of the land where RT and I live - dozens of wild turkeys reside here. The tomatoes and jalopenas symbolize good taste and spiciness. May I never grow too old to be spicy.

The leaves of lettuce in the salad are a symbol of folding money - currency. Again, may there be lots of that in 2008. The tomatoes remind me of the fruits of summer, the carrots for year-round bounty, and the cheese for the perfection of aging (I wish!).

The corn in the cornsticks is another symbol of my American heritage. Enough corn for good health, enough oil to smooth out the rough places in life, an egg to remind me of the newness of life, and the buttermilk to remind me that the sour places in life make the good places all the more sweet. Baking the cornsticks in cast-iron pans reminds me of what the American pioneers used in their travels cross country to explore new lands.

The iced tea is symbolic of my Southern roots. Sweet iced tea is pure Southern! The Splenda makes it something I can drink without worrying about calories. RT and I go through a gallon of this tea about every two or three days. I make several gallons every single week. I have to admit that I almost always used decaf tea so I can drink it in the evenings without worrying about it affecting my sleep.

There you have it! A New Year’s day feast with some traditional and some Carol-grown symbolism attached.

I made this for RT’s company party last week.  It is delicious, and it makes a lot.  This is for 5-6 servings.

Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

First prepare the chicken:

1 1/2 to 2 lbs. chicken (I used boneless chicken breasts and thighs)

1 rib celery, chopped

1 small onion, quartered

2 bay leaves

Combine the chicken, celery, onion and bay leaves.  Cover with water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.  Reduce heat and simmer for 45 minutes or until chicken is tender.  Remove chicken from broth, cool, debone (if needed) and chop.  Set the chicken aside.  Discard the bay leaves.  Save the broth, onion and celery.

Now it’s time to make the gumbo:

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup all purpose flour

2 cups diced onion

1 cup chopped celery 

6 cups chicken broth

1 pound sliced okra

1/2 pound turkey link sausage, cut into 1/2 inch slices

Hot cooked rice

In a large pan, combine the oil and flour and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the roux is a dark brown.  This will take about 15-20 minutes.  Stir in the diced onion and chopped celery.  Cook for about 10 minutes.  Add 6 cups of the reserved broth (including the onion and celery that was cooked earlier with the chicken), the chopped chicken, okra and sausage.  Bring to a boil.  Then reduce heat and simmer for an hour or longer.  Serve over the cooked rice. 

This is REALLY delicious gumbo, and by using chicken and turkey sausage, it’s on the healthy side, too.

There’s a Panera Bread restaurant near us, and RT and I love their Broccoli Cheddar soup.  I did an internet search to find the recipe.  The problem was that there were different recipes that all claimed to be THE Panera Bread recipe.  There were some common ingredients, though, and so I could figure out the basics of the recipe.  Most of the recipes recommended putting all the ingredients in a blender at the end.  However, I like little chunks of veggies in my soup.  Nothing substantial or large, but enough to give the soup a little texture.  So I left out the blending step.  Instead, I diced  all the veggies finely and then sauteed them together before adding them to the soup.

When RT and I had his office Christmas party here last week, we decided to have soup and sandwiches as the mainstays of the dinner.  I took a leap of faith and decided to make two soups I’d never made before:  Chicken and sausage gumbo, along with the broccoli cheddar soup.   I’ll save the gumbo for a later post (it was wonderful!), and I’ll present the broccoli cheddar soup here.   The soup turned out great - and it looked really pretty, too.  After I made the soup and the gumbo, I put each into a crock pot, turned the crock pot on warm, and then set out bowls and spoons and let my guests serve themselves.  It was a great way to handle a dinner party.

Broccoli Cheddar Soup

1 T. butter

1/2 medium onion, diced finely

1/2 pound fresh broccoli, chopped well

1 cup carrots, shredded

1/4 cup melted butter

1/4 cup all purpose flour

2 cups half-and-half

2 cups chicken stock

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

salt and pepper, to taste

8 ounces grated sharp cheddar cheese

Saute onion in 1 Tablespoon butter.  After about five minutes, add the shredded carrots and chopped broccoli and saute briefly.  Put lid on pan (so veggies will continue to cook) and set aside.  Combine the 1/4 cup melted butter and 1/4 cup flour in a large saucepan using a whisk.  Cook on medium heat for 4-5 minutes, stirring constantly.  Slowly add the half-and-half, stirring constantly, until thick.  Add the chicken stock, whisking all the time.  Simmer for about 20 minutes.

Add the onion/carrot/broccoli mixture, and cook over low heat until the vegetables are tender - about 20-30 minutes.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Add the grated cheese and nutmeg.  Stir until blended.  Enjoy.