Untouched Chicken Soup

It maybe spring but there are some cool days leftover from the winter season and making homemade soups can turn those days into pleasant ones. There's nothing better than homemade chicken soup on one of those cool days.

I bought some chicken breasts a few months ago, besides my whole chickens, and I decided to make a chicken soup out of it. These chicken breasts in particular were quite big and I know that I can definitely make more then one meal out of it.  I cut the breast in half and cut it into cubes for my soup. I love more vegetables in my meals rather than proteins so my recipe is more veggie friendly. I heated up a large pot or a dutch oven on the stove with some olive oil and browned my chicken cubes in it. Seasoned the meat with my basic seasoning blend and added some chopped scallions, or green onions to the meat. Scallions are usually cheaper then whole onions in most cases and I like their mild flavor in soups. While the meat and scallions are browning, I chopped up some whole button mushrooms and baby carrots. Since I love peas, I could not resist putting in a small can of them for this soup. Whether they are canned or frozen, peas are a great addition to soups or casseroles. Right before adding the remainder of the vegetables, I added some minced garlic and 2 cups of chicken stock. Garlic gives any dish a great flavor but I always add more garlic then most because you can never have too much garlic in your diet. After adding the rest of my ingredients, I added some thyme and garlic powder to the pot. I simmered the soup for about an hour and a half before I added a roux to thicken it up a bit.

About ten minutes before I served the soup, I boiled some water for egg noodles and spinach for the soup. I recommend cooking rice or noodles separately when making a soup because the starches suck up the broth of your soup. Fresh spinach always makes a great addition to soups or eating it my itself is good as well. The noodles and the spinach went into a bowl and two ladles of my homemade chicken soup went on top.

One of the most tastiest chicken soups that I have ever made and it didn't cost that much to make it. I bought the mushrooms, scallions, chicken stock, and minced garlic all for under ten bucks. The chicken breasts were sold in a pack of five and it was around $15. You can easily make this meal any day of the week and have untouched foods for another day. I had enough soup for another dinner or large lunch for later on this week.

Untouched Ground Beef

 Normally people only think of ground beef when you say ground meat. Beef is one of the cheapest ground meats but you can also purchase ground chicken, pork or turkey; just to name a few. Like chicken, beef is another one of those meats that can be used to make countless dishes and served in many different ways.

In this post I will tell you how to make some great seasoned ground beef for a few different dinners. My first meal I made some tacos. I bought some ground beef, 80% meat to 20% fat, and cooked it a skillet. I used my basic seasoning blend, salt, black pepper,and garlic powder. In my previous post, I explained that my basic seasoning blend can be used for any and all dishes. To make the meat taste like a traditional Mexican taco, I added some cumin, hot sauce, cayenne pepper and paprika. If you don't like spicy foods, then I would recommend taking out the cayenne pepper and hot sauce and substituting them for a few red pepper flakes and tomato sauce. I always add tomato sauce to my taco meat for the extra flavor but it's only optional. I heated up a few soft tortillas and added a third cup of rice for my complete dinner. Since I made the entire package of ground beef, I knew that there was going to be some untouched foods.

The seasoned ground meat can be used for about two more dinners this week. I can make another taco dinner and I can make a quick version of beef stroganoff. The trick to making a quick beef stroganoff is to have a can of cream of mushroom soup on hand. Heat up your untouched beef in a skillet and add a can of cream of mushroom soup to the meat. While the meat mixture is cooking, boil some water for some noodles. You can use any kind of noodle or you can even use rice. After the meat is cooked, add the cooked meat to the noodles or rice. It may not be your typical beef stroganoff, but it tastes just as good as beef stroganoff from scratch.