Homemade Chicken Broth

18 Feb

Last night, I made Kotopoulo Lemonato, and when we had finished, I just couldn’t throw out the chicken bones.  I had started a scraps bag of carrots, celery, and onion in the freezer to make broth some day, plus I have plenty of celery, carrots, and onion on hand.  So, I decided it was time to try to make chicken broth.  I was going to do the stove top, but decided to try out the slow cooker instead.  I have a 5.5 quart slow cooker, so it was a nice big size to get everything in.

 

Homemade Chicken Broth

What you need:

Whole chicken carcass or bones
1 onion, quartered
3-4 celery ribs
1 carrot, cut in pieces
Spices (I used a bay leaf, 3 cloves of garlic, fresh ground black pepper, and the chicken had some spices still from cooking, which was rosemary and oregano.  I did not use any salt.)
Water

How to make it:

Place chicken bones, vegetables, and spices in slow cooker.

 

Pour in water to be just level with the top of the slow cooker.  Turn on low, and allow to simmer for at least 8 hours, I did mine for just over 14 hours.

Allow to cool slightly and pour through a mesh strainer to separate the liquid out.  Discard the vegetables and bones.  Pour liquid into containers to cool.

Once at room temperature, cover and put in the refrigerator to allow the fat to separate.  Remove fat from top and you have chicken broth ready to go!

This yielded 6 cups of broth for me.  I divided into 3 cups each.  Most soup recipes I have call for 1 quart of chicken broth, so I will just add a cup of water to this and use it as a base for those soups.  I made Avgolemono Soup (recipe coming!) with 3 cups of it tonight, and I will use the other 3 cups for Broccoli Cheddar Cheese Soup in a few days.

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Bountiful Baskets DIY Cookies

17 Feb

 

For a few different holidays, Bountiful Baskets has a DIY cookie pack available as an extra add-on.  This one was for Valentine’s Day, and was $10.  We finally had time and were feeling well enough to do this.  As you can see from the picture above, we got 15 heart-shaped cookies and 4 containers of frosting, 2 white, 1 pink, and 1 red.

Here is what I like best about these cookies, the ingredient list:

Cookie Ingredients: Flour (cake and pastry), butter, sugar, whole eggs, salt, baking powder, vanilla.
Icing Ingredients: Powdered sugar, milk, butter, vanilla, salt, colors.

Simple, and I know and can pronounce what everything is!   I know that I could make these at home, probably a lot cheaper, but I haven’t had time to make much lately and I’m horrible at baking.  My cookies would not have looked nearly as nice or tasted as nice.  So, we get the cookie pack and my 2 girls and I have a blast making a mess.  It’s good quality time!

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Greek Salsa

16 Feb

 

This is a recipe I got from my Papou, and he had gotten it from a magazine, but I can’t remember which one anymore.  The recipe was actually Greek Salsa Chicken, this salsa served over lemon chicken and roasted potatoes.  Normally, I serve it with Lemon Herb Chicken and roasted potatoes that I’ve cooked separately.  But, I thought it would be the perfect addition to the Kotopoulo Lemonato we had for dinner tonight!  I was right!

 

Greek Salsa

What you need:

1 1/2 cups crumbled feta cheese
1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes, halved (I diced one regular tomato tonight since that’s what I had)
1 jar (4.75 oz) pitted kalamata olives
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp chopped fresh oregano (or 1 Tbsp dried oregano)

How to make it:

Combine all ingredients in a bowl.  Cover and chill until ready to serve.

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

14 Feb

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Since my oldest is in pre-K this year, she is having a Valentine’s Day party at school.  She decided that she wanted to make all her valentines instead of buying them at the store.  Which is fine with me!  It takes a little extra work, but it gives her a chance to work on her cutting and writing skills at the same time.  I am all about working on learning skills and making it not seem like school work.  Like, at the grocery store, we talk about colors and sizes of fruits and vegetables as we go through the produce section.  If we are getting more than one of something, I have them count with me as we put them in the cart.  At the park, we talk about nature or count the steps to get up to the slide.

Anyway, back to Valentine’s Day.  It kind of snuck up on me, so we had to make a run to the store to get our supplies this morning.  At a Friday Fun Day at a local church, we did a cute craft that was a butterfly with a sucker through the middle.  I figured there would be enough candy, so I decided to change it up a little.  Instead of butterflies, we decided to make hearts, because Katie really likes cutting hearts.  If you ask her to make a picture for you, she insists it has to be in the shape of a heart.  I picked up some red posterboard at the store for this.  Then, we found pencils to put through the center.  Next, I had her write her name on each one.  She struggled with this at first, but then I drew 2 lines for her to write between and she did much better after that.  We also picked out some sticky foam shaped hearts to put on them.  We had fun doing it together and they turned out pretty cute.

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Chicken Fried Rice

13 Feb

I’ve made plenty of stir fry, but never actually made fried rice.  I had veggies to make egg rolls, so I knew I wanted to make egg rolls, but I wanted something to go with it, so I decided to give Chicken Fried Rice a try.  I’m glad that I did, because I baked the egg rolls, and this time, they didn’t really turn out well.  I’m not sure what the problem was, but I was glad to have made the fried rice so we had something to eat still!  Fried rice is perfect for using up leftover rice and vegetables, or whatever vegetables you think you want.  Tonight, I used some diced onion and a small bag of frozen peas and carrots.

 

Chicken Fried Rice
Based on recipe here

What you need:

1.5 lbs chicken, cubed (can be cooked or uncooked)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 cups vegetables of your choice, I used onions, peas, and carrots
4 cups cooked, cold rice
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon pepper

How to make it:

Heat oil in a large wok.  Add chicken and cook until no longer pink.  Add in vegetables, and cook a few minutes until just tender.  Stir in rice, cook for a few minutes.

Move chicken, rice, and veggies out of the center and pour in eggs.  Cook until eggs set, stir to blend in.  Stir in soy sauce and pepper, cook for a few minutes until heated through.

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Weekly Meal Plan: 2/12/12 – 2/18/12

13 Feb

Here is what I am planning so far:

Sunday (last night): Bird’s Eye Voila! frozen meal

Egg rolls and fried rice
Lemon chicken and potatoes with Greek Salsa (whole chickens were on sale $.98/lb at Fry’s!)
Homemade pizzas, large one with cauliflower crust, smaller ones with eggplant crust
Grilled burgers and asparagus
Some kind of pasta and sauce, yet to be determined
Take out night

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Basket Breakdown – 2/11/2012

12 Feb

This week, I got the conventional basket for $15, organic 9 grain bread for $12, and DIY cookie pack for $10, plus the $1.50 handling fee for a total of $38.50.  I didn’t take a picture of the bread, since I’ve shown that before.

Here is what I got in this week’s conventional basket:

Corn, tomatoes, eggplant, mushrooms, asparagus, celery, broccoli, Romaine lettuce, lemons, oranges, and apples.  Not pictured are bananas, not sure why I didn’t get them in the picture.  Also, not pictured is my pineapple, I traded that for the 2nd asparagus shown.  Oh, and there are 2 apples missing that got eaten by 2 little monsters.

 

Tomorrow, when we get out the cookies to decorate, I will post a picture of what is included in the DIY cookie kit.

 

Note: The type and amount of food may vary from another basket because of geographic location and because of variances in how the ends of produce cases are distributed after everything has been distributed evenly.

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Spinach Lasagna Rollups

10 Feb

I had some lasagna noodles in my pantry that I wanted to use, but I wasn’t sure how I wanted to do lasagna.  Then, I remembered the Cheese Lasagna Rollups my mom used to get from Market Day, and decided I wanted to try to make some of my own.  It worked out that cottage cheese was on sale, and I had spinach, basil, and oregano in my fridge that I needed to use.  The filling I made just like my Spinach Manicotti recipe, and the sauce was the Tomato Sauce I made a couple of days ago.  It turned out great!

Spinach Lasagna Rollups

What you need:

9 lasagna noodles
2 eggs
1 container (15 oz) ricotta cheese (or cottage cheese)
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, divided
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 lb fresh spinach, chopped
1 1/2 tsp dried basil (or 2 tsp fresh basil)
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano (or 2 tsp fresh oregano)
1 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
4 cups Tomato Sauce

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cook lasagna noodles according to directions on box.  Drain water and cool on a piece of aluminum foil.

Meanwhile, beat eggs in a medium bowl.  Stir in the ricotta (or cottage cheese), 1/2 cup of the mozzarella, 1/4 cup of the Parmesan, garlic, spinach, basil, oregano, and parsley.  Pour 1 cup of the Tomato Sauce into a 13 x 9 baking dish, or enough to make sure to cover the entire bottom of the dish.  Spread filling on each lasagna noodle and roll the noodle.  Place seam side down in the dish.  Pour the remaining sauce over the rollups, then sprinkle on the remaining Parmesan and mozzarella.  Cover tightly with foil.

Bake for 30 minutes.  Remove foil, and bake for another 5-10 minutes, or until sides are bubbling and the cheese is melted.

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Guacamole Turkey and Roast Beef Wrap

9 Feb

This afternoon, I finally got around to making Guacamole using all the ingredients from my guacamole pack.  The avocados were beautiful, and the guacamole turned out amazing!  I ended up with about 5 cups of guacamole.

So, I needed to find a use for some of the guacamole, besides just eating it.  I ended up not having a lot of time for dinner prep tonight, so I decided to make some wraps.  I had recently gotten some large flour tortillas out of the freezer, so they were thawed and ready to go.  I briefly heated up each side of the tortilla, spread some guacamole at one end, laid down turkey and roast beef deli meat, then some sliced swiss cheese, and some lettuce.  I rolled it up, cut it in half, and had a very delicious dinner that my husband and kids were very pleased with!

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Tomato Sauce

9 Feb

You may remember a little while back I made Pizza Sauce.  I had tomatoes that I wasn’t sure what to do with, I decided to make Tomato Sauce again, but wanted to try to cook it instead.  It was a bit more time consuming than the other recipe I tried, but still very good.  I plan to use this for dinner later this week for Lasagna Rolls.  I still don’t have a deep red sauce like you see in jars, but it’s still very good, much better and fresher tasting than the jarred sauce.

Tomato Sauce
Makes approximately 4 cups

What you need:

4 lbs tomatoes
1/4 cup olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
Any other vegetables you want to add, peppers, celery, carrots, all finely chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
Fresh basil

How to make it:

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Cut an X in the bottom of each tomato and place in boiling water.  Keep in water for about 30 seconds, long enough for the skin to peel of easily, but not too long so that tomatoes become mushy.  Carefully remove from boiling water and place in a bowl of ice cold water.  Skin should peel off easily, if not, return to boiling water a few seconds, then back in the water a few seconds.  Squeeze tomatoes over a sieve to remove excess juice and seeds.  Chop up the tomatoes.

Next, heat olive oil in a sauce pan.  Add onion, any additional veggies, and garlic.  Cook until onions and garlic are translucent, veggies are soft.  Add in chopped tomatoes  and basil, and allow to simmer over medium-low heat.  As tomatoes cook, you can mash them with a masher or use an immersion blender on low to achieve your desired consistency.  (I don’t mind mine a little chunky, so I just mashed them slightly.)  Simmer for 30-45 minutes, until you reach your desired taste.  Use immediately in a dish or store in an airtight container in the fridge for another time.

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