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Category Archives: Soups

Turkey and Chicken Chili Verde with Garbanzos and Hominy

26 Saturday Mar 2016

Posted by Keebug in Soups

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Chick peas, chicken, chili, chili verde, cilantro, cumin, garbanzo beans, hominy, mexican, turkey, weight watchers

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I cannot say enough about this high protein, low fat chili verde. It’s a recipe invention that came from a desire to figure out what the fuck a tomatillo was. I can say proudly today that I’ve made the tomatillo my bitch. And I’m going to share with you now how to make tomatillos your bitch, too.  Here’s how:

The ingredients:

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  • 1 lb. ground turkey
  • 1 lb. chicken breast
  • 1 can great northern beans
  • 1 can garbanzo beans
  • 1 can white hominy
  • 1 small can chopped green chilis
  • 1 1/2 lbs. fresh tomatillos
  • 3 cups chicken stock
  • 1 yellow onion
  • 2 fresh jalapeños
  • 1 bell pepper
  • 5 toes garlic
  • 1 bunch cilantro
  • 1 lime, quartered
  • cayenne pepper
  • red pepper flakes
  • salt
  • sazon goya (without the red color)
  • garlic powder
  • hot chili powder
  • cumin
  • oregano
  • coriander

First things first, chop your chicken into bite size pieces and add to a large pot to cook with ground turkey.

You have to season at this stage to give the meat plenty of flavor. So it’s now that I add 2 packets of Sazon (Hispanic food aisle, it makes Mexcan style dishes taste more Mexican), a 1/2 tablespoon each of salt and oregano and hot chili powder, 1 teaspoon each of cayenne, coriander, garlic powder and red pepper flakes, and a tablespoon of cumin.  Stir that all in and cook the meat through.

While your meat is cooking, get ready to handle up on those tomatillos. Essentially, you’re about to make a salsa verde. Break out your food processor. It’s gonna be easy. Promise.

Tomatillos come wrapped in their own little papery skin.  You have to peel that skin off, then give them a good rinse to wash off the sort of sticky film that lies underneath. After that, simply quarter them up and toss them into your cuisinart.

To the mixer you’ll now add a big handful of fresh cilantro, 5 toes of garlic, and two whole fresh jalapeños…seeds and all. Too hot for you? Take the seeds out then, pussy.

Now give that goodness a whirl until it’s all puréed.  Set it aside.

Chop up one yellow onion and one bell pepper into a small dice and add that to the cooking meat.  Open your small can of chopped green chilies and add those, too. Cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes.

Now add your puréed salsa verde to the pot and toss in a couple-few bay leaves.

Now rinse and drain your beans. I really like using this mix of great northerns, garbanzos, and white hominy. The different textures and flavors are perfect for this chili. Add the rinsed and drained beans and hominy to the pot.

Give the pot a big stir and add three cups of chicken stock and a quartered lime (squeeze in the juice then just drop the lime right in). Bring the pot to a simmer and cook over medium heat for about 25 minutes.

Now serve yourself up a steaming bowl of chili, add a dollop of sour cream and garnish with some fresh cilantro. Enjoy your fiesta!

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Italian Wedding Soup

18 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by Keebug in Soups

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

italian, lowfat, soup, turkey, weight watchers

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Let me preface this post by proclaiming that, no, I am not in any way Italian.  In fact, I have likely never had Italian Wedding Soup made by a real Italian person.  If it’s on the menu I’ll order it, and that’s how this recipe came to be.  I ordered some Italian Wedding Soup one time in some random restaurant and thought to myself, “I can make this shit”.  So don’t go calling up your Nona and having her rush over to correct all the ways I’ve gone wrong.  When you taste this soup you’ll get how oh-so-right it is.

Here are your ingredients:

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You’ll need:

  • 1 lb ground turkey
  • 1 bag fresh spinach
  • 2 small onions
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
  • Parmesan cheese  (I like the grated stuff)
  • Parsley
  • Celery, 2 cups, chopped
  • Carrots, 2 cups, chopped
  • Garlic
  • Mushrooms (I use cremini, you use your favorite), 2 cups, chopped
  • 1 bell pepper (red, yellow or orange)
  • fresh or “squeezy” basil
  • Seasonings
  • Chicken stock
  • Acini de Pepe pasta

Now, let’s get started on your meatballs.  These tender turkey meatballs are flavored heavily with basil and parmesan and it will take all you’ve got not to devour them out of the pan before returning them to your soup.

To your pound of ground turkey (use all white meat ground turkey for an even more low fat version of this soup!) add a tablespoon of “squeezy” basil.  This is basil from a tube that can be found in most all grocery stores’ herb sections.  I like this stuff because I don’t have to grow it or keep it alive and it has a pretty damn long shelf life in the door of my fridge.  Tastes as close to the fresh stuff as you’re ever gonna get, in my humble opinion.

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Next, you were probably wondering why there was a whole wheat hamburger bun in the ingredients picture.  That’s because I thought I had panko bread crumbs but I was in fact, wrong (note the time and date, this doesn’t happen often).  So, I used my food processor to grind up a hamburger bun for fresh breadcrumbs.  Use panko or fresh…they’re lighter and will make for a much lighter and more tender meatball.

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Add those breadcrumbs to your turkey along with an egg.

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Now I like to break out my food processor to get the tiniest of possible chops on the veggies that go in these little meatballs.  First, a small onion, cut in 8ths.  Into the processor it goes.

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Next, about 5 toes of garlic.

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Then, a big handful of fresh parsley.

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Now get your grind on.  Scrape down the side and pulse a few more times.  You’re looking for tee-tiny little pieces.  Nothing so big it will take long to cook through.

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Add all that aromatic goodness to your meatball mix and open your spice cabinet.  It’s time to season.  You want to add about a teaspoon of kosher salt, a 1/2 teaspoon of white pepper (you can use black pepper, too), and a teaspoon of dried Italian seasoning.

Now to that add about 1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese and get to mixing.  Now you’re ready to make meatballs.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about this and the best I can tell you is to make your meatballs about the size of one human testicle.  You can see that my meatball mix made about 24 testicle-sized meatballs.  Yum.

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Heat some olive oil over medium/medium-low heat on the stove in a heavy bottomed pot (use the same pot you’ll use for your soup!) and add your meatballs in shifts.  Don’t crowd the balls, folks.  They need room to breathe.  I did mine in 3 shifts.  It’s a lot of ball work, but if you’re not already, you’ll be a pro like me in no time.  Now just brown those balls on all sides and add them to a plate set aside (Not the plate with the raw meatballs.  Jesus.  Basic food safety here, folks).

Now if you’re good like me, you’ll be prepping and chopping your soup vegetables while the meatballs cook.  I chopped about 2 cups of carrots and celery, as seen below.  You know how chunky you like your veggies in your soup.  Just chop ’em how you like ’em.

Next, 2 cups chopped onion and 1 chopped pepper.  I like to use either red, orange or yellow.  Today at the store, for whatever reason, the yellow ones were about 16 cents cheaper.  So, after this, I’m headed straight to the bank, baby.

Next, chop about 7 toes of garlic and about 2 cups of mushrooms.  I keep the mushrooms separate from the other chopped vegetables because I add them later in the cooking process.

Congratulations!  You’ve completed all your cutting and chopping for the evening!  And by now all your meatballs should be perfectly done and smelling your entire house up like garlic, basil and parmesan cheese.

Leave the little brown bits left behind from your meatballs in the pot and dump in your chopped veggies, with the exception of the mushrooms.  Season with salt and pepper and add about 1/2 cup of white wine.  Don’t go judging my fancy wine selection, here. Feel free to use any white wine that you would also drink…that doesn’t leave much out for me as you can clearly see from the plastic container with peel back, yogurt-style, foil lid.  Let the wine simmer over medium heat for a few minutes and scrape up all the meatball yumminess that is stuck to the bottom of your pot.

After about 5 minutes of cooking, go ahead and add your mushrooms and cover the whole pot, leaving about 2-3 of space from the top, with delicious, homemade chicken stock.  Simmer this for about another 7-10 minutes.

Now, let’s add some spinach.  You’re going to add about 3/4 of your bag of fresh spinach at this point.  Tear the spinach into smaller pieces with your bare hands.  Grunt loudly as you do it in a show of strength.  Stir that in and give it a minute or two to incorporate.

Now, add your meatballs back in to the pot.  Also add any meaty juice that may have collected on your plate.  That’s good shit.  Let this all cook together over a simmer for about 10 minutes.  You’re spinach will get all wilty and delicious.

Next, you’re going to add a 1/2 cup of uncooked acini de pepe pasta directly to the simmering pot.  This tiny, ball-shaped pasta got its name because it looks like little peppercorns.  They’re adorable and I love them.  Cook the pasta for the recommended time on the back of the box or until tender, then add the last 1/4 bag of spinach, grunting loudly again to let everyone in the house know what a complete badass you are.  If no one’s in the house with you, grunt louder so the neighbors can hear.  Stir that spinach in and you’re all done!

Ladle yourself a delicious bowl of Wedding Soup and top with a little more parmesan cheese…because you deserve it.  Voila!

 

 

 

 

Homemade Chicken Stock…a necessity.

15 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by Keebug in Soups

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

broth, chicken, fresh, stock, vegetables

I have a dark confession to make.  At any given moment in time I have multiple bags in my freezer with the word “carcass” written on them. It’s a Dahmer-like obsession with rich and delicious stock…that good, homemade stuff that makes Swanson cry with shame. Chicken carcasses, turkey carcasses, ham bones…just because you’ve devoured all that meat doesn’t mean there isn’t still some greatness inside those bones. I toss my sad, little skeletons (sorry vegans…but, really, why are you even here reading this?) into freezer bags and save them for when I have an hour or two free to turn them into something delicious.

Tonight I was making soup, so I pulled a bag labelled “chicken carcass” out of my freezer and promptly got to work.

This super simple recipe serves as a delicious base for so many more main dishes, gravies, and soups.

After cooking your stock, let it cool and ladle it into quart sized freezer bags, then lay them flat to freeze for easy storage.  Simply pull one out every time a recipe calls for broth, stock or even water and dazzle your guests with rich flavor.  That’s right…DAZZLE.

To be more metal about the whole thing, consider labeling your stock bags “carcass soup”…just an idea.

Stock will keep for about 6 months in the freezer.

Here’s what you’ll need:

imageIngredients:

  • 1 chicken carcass (this one is from a chicken I roasted around Valentine’s Day)
  • 1 onion
  • 1 lemon (or not)
  • handful of carrots (baby or quartered full size)
  • bay leaves (about 4-6)
  • 4-6 stalks of celery
  • handful of parsley
  • salt/pepper

Place your carcass of choice into a large, heavy stock pot.  Like I said, this little chicken’s frozen and not looking too appetizing right now.  Tossing him in frozen is just fine.

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Dump in a big handful of carrots.

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Add 4-6 bay leaves. I use bay leaves in anything with liquid. It’s just what I learned growing up in LA. To be perfectly honest, I’m not even entirely sure what flavor they add. Having said this, I remain steadfast that are imperative and cannot be left out. 😉

imageNow quarter an onion and add that to the pot.

imageNow’s the time when I quarter a lemon and add that to the pot. There’s some dispute over the lemon addition so if it’s not to your taste, feel free to omit it. I just think it adds a fresh, bright flavor.

imageNow all that’s left to add is your celery and parsley. Just shove ’em in there.

Now add a palmful of salt and a palmful of black peppercorns to season.

All that’s left to do now is cover it all with water, up to the brim, and bring to a rolling boil.  I lay a wooden spoon across the top of the pot to keep it from boiling over. I found that little gem of a tip on a “life hack” blog. I like to read those to keep an up to date list of people who I think deserve to die for using the phrase “life hack”.

After about ten minutes, turn the heat down but keep your stock at a low boil for about an hour or until the water line has gone down from the rim at least an inch and a half or two inches. Then, make yourself a little setup like this one (always in the sink to avoid catastrophe), and slowly pour out your pot…bones, veggies, carcass soup and all.

The colander will catch the solids and leave you with a bowl of rich, delicious goodness that’ll have you ready to get busy cookin’ or get busy dyin’ (gratuitous Shawshank reference for no reason at all).

imageEnjoy your new found Swanson-less, flavor-full life. You’re welcome!

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