Comforting Chili

It's now officially fall, and with it comes cooler weather. With cooler weather comes warm homemade soups. I'm really the only one in the house who eats soup (though Lu may when she's a bit older) so I tend to freeze quite a bit of mine and munch on them all year long. However, the one "soup" my husband loves is my chili. I tried making a Cincinati chili once, and it was awful. I came across this recipe, adjusted it to our tastes, and this is our go-to chili from now on. I know Dylan likes a bit more of a kick to his, but honestly, I can't take that much more. So, I figure if he wants more, than he can add some jalapñeos or something. ;)

Ingredients

• 2 pounds lean ground beef or turkey
• 1 (29 oz) can tomato sauce
• 46 oz petite cut canned tomatoes not drained
• 1 (15 oz) can dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 (15 oz) can light red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/4 cup chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder

Directions

• Brown ground meat in a large pot. Season with the onion powder. Drain and place back into the pot.
  

• Into the pot, add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, kidney beans, cayenne pepper, sugar, oregano, ground black pepper, salt, cumin, and chili powder. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to low. Simmer for 1 1/2 hours.

My Take

As you can see in the pictures, I have several cans even though my ingredients just state one. Sometimes I can't find the right size of can, so I just get however many ounces I need, no matter how many cans it takes. Ha! I also tend to use 1 pound of ground beef and 1 pound of ground turkey. I usually use ground turkey in everything, though Dylan isn't a huge fan of it, so I compromise in this dish, and it comes out great since you cook them all together.

I'm sure you can cook this in the slow cooker, yet I've never done this before. I would cook it on low for 8-10 hours. That would be great for a dinner coming home from work during the cold weather days. 

Slow Cooker Chicken Pot Pie

I recently had a couple of boneless skinless chicken breasts hanging out in my freezer that I wanted to use up. I know chicken is healthy for me, but I get burned out on it super fast, and I don't like eating just a chicken breast. So, I scoured the Internet, searching for something I could make with the few ingredients I had on hand (didn't do a good job this week on thinking ahead grocery-wise).

What I came up with was a slow cooker chicken and dumplings. I found a few recipes, and then I noticed some of them added veggies, so to me, it seemed more like a slow cooker chicken pot pie. I thought, "Hey, I have some canned veggies that have been lounging around my pantry for a long time. This'll be a good time to use them! There's also some baby carrots which need to be used up too!" So I did some more digging. I found a recipe that seemed good to me, but I decided to change it to suit what I had on hand. So the following is what I put in mine. In the "My Take" section, I'll let you know what I liked, didn't like, and what I would change next time I make it.

A few of the ingredients you'll need

Ingredients 

• 2 large skinless boneless chicken breasts
• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 2 (10.5 oz) cans condensed cream of chicken soup
• Garlic salt
• Celery salt
• Ground black pepper
• Mrs. Dash's no-salt original recipe
• Onion poweder
• 1/2 can sweet peas
• 1/2 can green beans
• 1 1/3 cup Bisquick mix
• 6 tablespoons milk

Directions

Throw everything except for the Bisquick mix and milk into the crock pot, just sprinkling the garlic salt, celery salt, ground black pepper, Mrs. Dash's, and onion powder onto the chicken breasts to season them. Cook on Low for 5 hours. After 5 hours, shred the chicken in the crock pot. Cook for 1 more hour on Low. Mix the Bisquick and milk together to make dumplings. Drop the dumplings, spoonful by spoonful, into the crock pot. Cook on High for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Dish is done when the dumplings are cooked all the way through.

After the chicken has been shredded

My Take

I was pretty unsure as to how this was going to turn out, but my fears were proved wrong. This was amazing! I was worried that it would be too salty or the dumplings wouldn't cook right, but nope! I was pretty amazed that the dumplings cooked so well in the slow cooker.

I initially made the dumpling recipe as listed on the Bisquick box, but it didn't look like enough, so I doubled it. I'm glad I did.

People have also used canned biscuits, but since I didn't have any on hand, I just did the dumplings. It's also said that you should cut the chicken into chunks before you put it in the crock pot, but I've found that if you leave the breasts whole, they hold their juices better and stay more moist.

If you love home made chicken pot pie, I highly encourage you to make this. Feel free to substitute your own veggies and add some more. I think next time I make it I may add a bit of water, as I wanted it a bit more soupy. The biscuits/dumplings tend to suck up the moisture once added.

In conclusion, this will be added to my crock pot recipes and I will definitely make this during the winter months. Especially when the temperatures are as cold as they are today: 1 with a windchill of  -2!

Spicy Chicken Taco Soup

I love chicken tortilla soup and recently I've been craving a bowl. So I jumped online to check out a few recipes. I knew I wanted to cook it in the slow cooker, as Lucy screaming through the baby gate makes it difficult to spend a lot of time cooking in the kitchen. Because I was looking for a specific flavor, I took different ideas from several different recipes. I had bought a smoked chicken from which I made a stock from and used the meat in this recipe. The meat added a very delicious flavor to the whole soup.

Ingredients

• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce
• 1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes with green chilies
• 1 (15 oz) can black beans
• 1 (16 oz) can chili beans
• 1 can kernel corn (I used about a cup of frozen)
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1 tablespoons homemade taco seasoning
• Cilantro to taste
• Sour cream, yellow corn tortilla chips, shredded cheese, avocado, etc. for garnishing

Directions

Dump everything expect for the cilantro into the slow cooker and mix well. Cook on Low for 5 hours. Shred the chicken and add the cilantro. Cook for another 30 minutes. Serve topped with whatever garnishes you wish.

My Take

I called this "spicy" because to me, all I could taste was heat unless I dumped quite a bit of sour cream into it. I'm not quite sure where it came from, so I'm going to make some tweaks to it and make it more tame for me. I'm also not sure if the cilantro being cooked into the soup really added anything, so next time I may just save it for a garnish.

Because I used pre-cooked chicken, the cooking time may have to be extended if you're using raw chicken breasts.

Have you been craving any soups this winter? Have you done any experimenting with recipes you've found? Do you have a favorite taco/tortilla soup you make every time? Let me know in the comments. I love hearing from you guys. :)

Cincinnati Chili

My first time making chili, so I thought it went over pretty well.

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic
• 2 pounds ground beef chuck
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper (cayenne)
• 2 cans (16 oz) tomatoes
• 1 can (14 1/2 oz) beef broth
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1/2 square (1/2 oz) unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 1 package (16 oz) spaghetti or linguine, cooked as label directs

Directions

• In nonreactive 5-quart Dutch oven, heat oil over medium heat. Add onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer to small bowl; set aside. Add garlic to Dutch oven; cook 1 minute longer. Transfer to bowl with onions.
• In same Dutch oven, cook ground beef over high heat, breaking up meat with side of spoon, until meat is browned. Discard fat. Stir in chili powder, cumin, cinnamon, salt, oregano, and ground red pepper; cook 1 minute longer.
• Add tomatoes with their juice to Dutch oven, breaking them up with side of spoon. Stir in broth, water , chocolate, browned beef, and onion-garlic mixture; heat to boiling. Reduce heat; cover and simmer 2 hours and 30 minutes. Remove cover and simmer until thickened, about 30 minutes longer.
• Meanwhile, in a large saucepot, cook pasta as label directs. Drain. Serve chili over pasta.
• Makes 8 main-dish servings.

My Take

It turned out pretty good. I didn't really get to taste it, as by the time it was done, it was close to midnight. Also, it wasn't as watery as I was expecting it to be. Maybe that's because I had to stop cooking it and then start cooking it again. Probably not a good idea, but it kinda had to be done.

On a note of ingredients, I only used one onion, and just used regular ground beef. I think those were the only changes I made.

I think next time I make it, I may add kidney beans, 'cause Dylan apparently thinks that you need kidney beans in your chili to make it chili. Shouldn't be that big of a deal, right?