Make your own salads

This has become a favorite in our house especially on busy days.  The girls love the "make your own" aspect of it and I love it because it's (mostly) healthy and quick and easy.  No recipe really.  Just pick your toppings- we usually do tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, chives, hard boiled eggs, cheese, bacon (if I have it), craisins or raisins, sometimes olives and/or avocado and usually some type of nuts.

I found this  fabulous marinade for chicken and beef.  It's not only south beach diet friendly, it's also super easy and versatile.  Sometimes when I bring chicken home from the store, I go ahead and cut it up and put it in the marinade and then put it in the freezer in ziplocs and it's ready to go.  Other times if I haven't really planned ahead, I'll marinate the chicken just for an hour or so before cooking it and it's still just as yummy.  It's also a great marinade to use over night before grilling, but sadly we don't have a grill...

Mostly I love that we've found a fun, creative and healthy way for our girls to love salad!  

For dressing, I almost always use homemade ranch or our favorite balsamic vinegar dressing that I use for everything.  Here's that recipe...

Balsamic Vinegar Dressing

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

3 TBSP honey

2 TBSP dijon mustard

1-2 garlic cloves minced

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup olive oil

Combine all ingredients expect olive oil.  Gradually stir in olive oil until well blended.  Store at room temperature and shake to combine before using.

KJ's Chicken Salad

KJ might not even know that she has a chicken salad, but in our house, this is KJ's chicken salad.  She made it for supper when I visited them back in the fall and I LOVED it so much and now make it a good bit.  So yummy and quick and easy!  (and pretty...)

KJ's Chicken Salad

1 rotisserie chicken (or chicken cooked in crock pot- white and dark meat)- torn into pieces

chopped celery

chopped walnuts

craisins

celery salt (amount depends on if you also used celery too)

mayonaise (enough to where it sticks together but not so much that it gets gloopey- is that a word?)

Combine all and serve on a bed of lettuce.

(I had mine with hummus and red peppers- also super yummy!)

Mulligatawny

The name of this soup makes me think of Seinfeld and the soup n@zi. I had no idea what was in it until I decided to make it one day. I imagine there are probably different variations of it out there. One thing is for sure, this version from my Harry's Roadhouse cookbook fed us for about a week and we had extra to take to friends as well. If you're ever hosting a big group I think this would be a fun thing to serve.

1 c uncooked rice
1 c diced onions
1 c diced celery (I used celery seeds b/c I didn't have fresh, but wished I would have just put more carrot of apple for more texture...)
1 c diced carrots
1/2 c butter, divided
3 1/2 T good-quality curry powder (I used red curry paste...)
1 1/2 t turmeric
1/4 t cayenne
2 1/2 quarts chicken stock (I used homemade)
1 quart coconut milk (I used 2 cans which may not have equaled a full quart...)
2 apples, peeled and diced
3 cups cooked and diced turkey or chicken (I used chicken)
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 c flour
1/4 c chopped cilantro

Cook the rice in 2 cups of water. Set aside.

Sautee vegetables in half of the butter. When onions become translucent, add curry powder, turmeric, and cayenne. Cook for about 5 minutes; add stock and coconut milk. Bring to a boil, and then reduce heat to a simmer. Add apples. When apples are soft add the cooked turkey or chicken. Adjust seasonings for salt and pepper.

Make a roux with 1/4 c butter and 1/4 c flour. Whisk into hot soup, being sure to whisk out lumps. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes.

Place rice in the bottom of six 12-ounce bowls, top with soup, and garnish with chopped cilantro.

**it says this feeds 6 but it went a long way for us - I just made fresh rice each time. You can make it stretch for awhile over rice. I liked it better over brown rice than white, but I prefer brown rice in general so that could be why

Crock- pot Tortilla Soup

This one is so good that I almost put in on here twice!  Click here for the original recipe, but this time I have a picture.  (although not a very good picture- I haven't figured out yet how to take good pictures of food...). Anyway, this is a favorite in our house and SOOO easy.  And for an alternate way to make it...  I realized yesterday morning that my crock pot was broken, so instead I boiled the chicken and then added everything else to the pot and let it simmer for about an hour- still fabulous!

Tornado Chicken and Mess-up rolls

I found this recipe on the Pioneer Woman's blog and it was amazing!  Click here for the full recipe.  I renamed it tornado chicken because in the middle of making it, all the tornado sirens went off and we spent about an hour in the bathtub covered with pillows.  Honestly, I was a little skeptical about serving it to the girls who aren't huge fans of mushrooms or olives but my pregnancy taste buds won out and I went ahead with it. However, thanks to the tornado, our power went out so we had to eat it in the dark so even they enjoyed it since they couldn't really see the mushrooms and olives...

I love finding quick and easy dinner roll recipes and I found one in a Southern Living that I hadn't tried.  However, in the craziness of trying to fix dinner before the tornado sirens went off, I completely messed up the recipe.  The original recipe is:

Cream Cheese Rolls
 1/2 cup butter
8 oz cream cheese
1 cup self rising flour
Cream butter and cream cheese, gradually add flour.  Put in mini muffin tins and bake at 400 for about 15 minutes.

Well, in my hurry, I creamed the butter and cream cheese and then added 2 cups of flour.  oops.   I didn't have anymore cream cheese so I coudn't just double the recipe.  So I looked in my frig and spotted sour cream and remembered that it is often in these quick dinner bread recipes.  I added about a cup of sour cream (until it got back to the right looking consistency), filled 12 regular muffin tins and baked like the original recipe called for- turned out very yummy!  Would probably also be good with shredded cheese or spices like basil added.

I didn't take any pics of these recipes, again, thanks to the craziness of the tornados but if you follow Pioneer Woman's recipe, she photographed it beautifully.

Kendra's Chicken Enchiladas

I didn't know what else to call these to differentiate them from the ones in the previous post because although these too are chicken enchiladas, they are altogether different from the previous ones. Not only that - this started out as burrito filling and turned into enchiladas. I combined several recipes and added my own touch to get the finished product so my husband gave me the okay to call them mine. And I have to admit I'm proud of myself because I rarely ever venture out and create something in the kitchen - I'm more of a 'stick strictly to the recipe' kind of gal.

I began with the recipe from allrecipes for Salsa Chicken Burrito Filling:

2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (I used large ones)
1 (4 oz) can tomato sauce (I used at least twice that amount, if not a little more)
1/4 c. salsa (I used 1/2 cup)
1 pkg taco seasoning mix (the kind I had on hand happened to be Cheese flavored)
1 t. ground cumin
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 t. chili powder
hot sauce to taste (I didn't add hot sauce)
To turn this into enchilada filling I also used:
1 can black beans (drained, not rinsed)
1 green bell pepper, chopped

Place chicken breasts and tomato sauce in a medium saucepan over medium high heat. Bring to a boil, then add the salsa, seasoning, cumin, garlic and chili powder. Let simmer for 15 minutes. I added 1/2 c to 1 c of water during this step to keep enough liquid in the skillet - oh, and I used a skillet instead of a saucepan...

With a fork, start pulling the chicken meat apart into thin strings. Keep cooking pulled chicken meat and sauce, covered, for another 5 to 10 minutes. Add hot sauce to taste and stir together. Before this step I added a can of black beans and 1 chopped bell pepper to the skillet - I then covered it and let it simmer for about 5 minutes to heat the beans and pepper through.

Homemade Enchilada Sauce
While the chicken was simmering in the first step I made enchilada sauce - I didn't have any cans of it in the cupboard so I found a recipe and made it from scratch.

1 T flour
1 1/2 T olive oil
1/2 t thyme
1/2 t oregano
1/2 t cayenne
1 t cumin
1 clove garlic, minced
1 1/2 c. chicken broth (all I had was beef broth so I used that...)
1/2 to 1 c. tomato puree (I used closer to 1 c.)
1 T lime juice (I didn't have any so I omitted this)

In a large heavy skilled saute the flour and oil over medium heat for 1 minute. Add herbs and spices and garlic. Cook 1 more minute and then add broth, tomato puree and lime juice. Raise heat to high and boil stirring constantly until thickened.

To make the enchiladas I used 9 small flour tortillas. I spooned some of the filling along with a pinch of cheese into each tortilla. Then I placed them next to one another in a greased 9x13 casserole dish seam sides down. Then I dumped the homemade enchilada sauce on top and sprinkled with more cheddar cheese.

Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until hot, bubbly and cheese is melted.

These go great served alongside some Mexican Rice.

Mexican Rice

3 T vegetable oil
1 c uncooked long grain rice
1 t. garlic salt
1/2 t ground cumin
1/4 c. chopped onion
1/2 c. tomato sauce
2 c. chicken broth

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat and add rice. Cook, stirring constantly, until puffed and golden. While rice is cooking, sprinkle with salt and cumin.

Stir in onions and cook until tender. Stir in tomato sauce and chicken broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes. Fluff with a fork.