Chicken Tortilla Soup

This soup is perfect to kick of the autumn soup weather. The flavors are light and bright, but the soup is filling. It's an adaptation of this one from Danny Boome at Food Network. You could use fresh tomatoes and beans that you cooked in the pressure cooker, but for me, this should be about a quick weeknight meal with minimal prep.

Chicken Tortilla Soup
2 Tbs oil
1 small onion, diced
2 Tbs garlic, minced
1-2 green chilies, seeds removed, diced (optional)
6 cups water
2-3 chicken cubes (start with 2 and adjust)
1 can tomatoes
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
3 chicken breasts
2 limes, juiced
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 cup (loosely packed) roughly chopped fresh cilantro (coriander)
One large roti, grilled and cut into thin strips, or tortilla chips

Add-ons:
Grated cheese
Lime wedges
Avocado slices

Heat oil in a large saucepan. Add the onions and cook until softened. Add the garlic and chili and fry for about a minute. Pour the water, tomatoes, chicken cubes, and beans into the pot and bring to a boil. Once at a boil, lower heat to simmer and add the chicken breasts. Cook on low heat 20-25 minutes.* Once the chicken is cooked through, remove from the soup, shred it, and then add it back to the soup. Add lime juice and fresh cilantro to the pot. Remove from heat. Ladle soup into bowls and top with crispy tortilla strips or crumbled tortilla chips.

*To really speed this up, I poached chicken the night before and had it ready to shred. This dropped the "day of" cook time by at least 10 minutes.

GF Note: This recipe can be gluten free if you choose canned tomatoes with no additives, GF corn chips (Cornitos brand are marked as GF), and GF stock cubes.

Awesome Chinese Stirfry Sauce

This is less of a personal recipe and more of a rave about something that I have loved for about 2 years. It's seriously good stuff!

Nagi at RecipeTinEats lets you in on a Chinese takeout secret--a good all-purpose sauce. This one is awesome, and here you'll find 10 ways to use the sauce.

In order to make this locally, you do need to substitute at least one ingredient. I buy Kikkoman soy sauce for the dark, Tiger brand light soy sauce, and Korean soju for the Chinese wine. The Korean rice wine is available at Uttam.  

Korean Chamisul soju available here

What's on Our Plates

If you're looking for some food inspiration, here's what we're eating this week. On the two chicken days, I'm splitting 500g of chicken, as I'm only cooking for 2.

Sunday
Grilled chicken with bottled barbecue sauce
Brown rice
Steamed broccoli

Monday
Chicken Tortilla Soup
* Swap fire roasted tomatoes for other canned tomatoes
* Substitute any other cooked bean

Tuesday
French Dip Subs

Wednesday
Vegetarian Pad Thai

Thursday
Pita bread
Falafel
Tahini sauce

Friday
Moo Ping
Thai vegetables in oyster sauce
* Use only the sauce portion of the recipe with whatever veg we have.
Sticky rice

Chicken Enchiladas

I scoured the internet to find a recipe for enchiladas that was really workable here, and I adapted this one from Southern Living.  Admittedly, it is not the cheapest meal if you use the shortcuts that I employ, but it does take it back to the realm of weeknight dinners if you do use those. I cook some chicken ahead of time so that step is eliminated, and I buy locally made tortillas. This is a very American take on enchiladas so look elsewhere if you're aiming for truly authentic.

3 1/2 cups cooked shredded chicken (or other meat already cooked)
1 Tbs chopped fresh coriander/cilantro
1-2 batches enchilada sauce
2 cups cheese
8 large flour tortillas

Preheat oven to 230 C. Stir together the first four ingredients, 1 1/2 cups enchilada sauce, and 1 cup cheese. For extra flavor, add in some browned onions and garlic. Into each tortilla, spoon up to 1/2 cup chicken mixture in the center. Roll and place seam side down in a lightly greased 9x13 pan. Pour any remaining sauce over the enchiladas. Sprinkle cheese over the top. Bake covered for 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake uncovered for 10 more minutes or until cheese is melted and golden.

Basic Enchilada Sauce

This recipe goes with the Chicken Enchilada post. Since we can't easily find canned enchilada sauce here, this is a quick shortcut recipe. I found this recipe here at Dinner Then Dessert. It gets the job done and is flexible as far as how spicy your family likes their food.

Basic Enchilada Sauce
1/4 cup oil
2 Tbs flour
3 Tbs American style chili powder (recipe here)
1 cup tomato puree
1 cup water
1/2 chicken cube
2 tsp ground cumin
1 Tbs garlic, minced
1/2 tsp onion powder (or finely minced onion)
1/4 teaspoon salt

Heat the oil in a saucepan on medium heat. Add the flour and chili powder. Cook until the color begins to brown slightly while you keep stirring. Add all the other ingredients to the saucepan and stir until they are fully combined. Cook for 8-10 minutes until the sauce is thickened and has lost its "raw" tomato color.

Breakfast So Easy a 5-Year-Old Can Do It!

The title of this post is not an exaggeration, and this recipe has become one of my 5-year-old's weeknight chores a couple days a week. He loves that he can contribute a meal all by himself.

Both of my kids love oatmeal, but this time of year it just feels wrong to eat hot cereal for breakfast. Enter this easy, cold oatmeal breakfast that you can make in under 5 minutes. I have been using the Finish rolled oats that are being packaged locally, and they work great for this recipe. The quantity here is enough to feed my two kids breakfast for two mornings.

Overnight Oatmeal
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup milk
1 cup yogurt (sweetened variety)
2 mashed bananas
Other flavorings to taste: 1 tsp vanilla, 2 tsp cinnamon, or 1-2 Tbs chocolate milk powder

Pour all the ingredients into a plastic tub and mix together. Add optional flavorings according to what you like. Refrigerate overnight and serve cold in the morning.

Now enjoy a little less stress in your morning!

I'm Back with Boiled Eggs!

Well....it's been a while (insert sheepish grin here). Life happens, doesn't it? Like a whole year of life! It's time for me to get back on the horse and begin sharing recipes that work well or adapt well for the kitchen here. I'll set the bar low with a couple recipes a month, and if I do more, then bravo!

Let's start with something so simple that I have found to be a game changer--boiled eggs! I like boiled eggs. I find them to be an easy breakfast if I've precooked some and stashed them in the fridge. One of my children also likes them, but those darn yolks can be so dry that you feel like you're choking them down. We've discovered that boiling them just under hard boiled (no jiggly stuff for me!) is the perfect happy medium. Now, I'm going to throw you a curve ball. Enter the pressure cooker. Perfectly boiled eggs that are easy to peel no matter how fresh the egg. What more could you want? Did I mention that perfectly cooked boiled eggs don't have that sulfury smell either? Yeah...that's a bonus.

Pressure Cooker Boiled Eggs

You'll need:
Eggs
1 cup water
Pressure Cooker
Steamer basket, rack, or folded tea towel
Timer

First, you'll need to put your steamer basket, rack, or folded tea towel into the bottom of your pressure cooker. This is to keep the eggs off the direct heat. I'm not sure what would happen if you didn't, but I saw this somewhere so I use one of those collapsible steamer baskets. Place your eggs on top of the rack. Avoid any eggs with fine cracks as pressure cooking tends to break those open. Pour 1 cup water into the bottom of the cooker. If you're using a tea towel, add enough so that you've got at least 1-2 inches of water standing once the towel absorbs some. Lock down the cooker lid.

Turn on the heat to high. Once you reach full pressure (indicated by the big whistle here), switch the heat to low and set your timer as follows:

3 minutes - soft boiled
5 minutes - medium boiled (ideal, in my opinion)
6 minutes - hard boiled

When the timer rings, for soft or medium boiled you want to do the quick release method by running the pressure cooker under cold water and getting the eggs out immediately. For hard boiled, remove the cooker from the heat and allow the pressure to release naturally over 5 minutes then open. Rinse eggs under cold water or place in a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process.

Enjoy your perfectly cooked eggs! I like to mark mine with an X when I put them in the fridge so there's no mixing them up with raw eggs.