Chicken Pot Pie

Hello friends.  Just recently, I decided to eliminate as much as possible processed foods and foods containing High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS).  I recently found out that one of my favorite foods, stuffing, contains HFCS, just in time for Thanksgiving.  So, this year, I am going to give it a hand to make my own….the old fashioned way.

But, I'm not here to talk about Thanksgiving….at least not yet.  I'm here to share a recipe that used to be 100% processed foods, chicken pot pie.  When I first started making pot pie, I used the following ingredients:

can chicken
Veg-all
cream of chicken soup
refrigerated pie crust
spices

Now, I've come up with a new recipe.  I've replaced everything with items not from cans, with the exception of pie crust.  (Mine aren't that good, so I use the refrigerated ones.  I've checked the ingredients, and it's ok to use.)  Keep in mind, as with all my recipes, some ingredients are not measured exactly, but done estimated amounts.

So, are you ready to make a chicken pot-pie that the kids will fight for seconds?  Let's get started.

1 tsp olive oil
3 chicken thighs (without skin, or cook with skin and remove later.)
salt, pepper, rosemary, marjoram, thyme, & parsley (all to taste)
2 carrots, sliced
2 stalks of celery, sliced
1/2 bag frozen mixed vegetables
2 TBS butter
2 TBS flour
1/2 - 1 cup of milk
1 pilsbury pie crust

In a stock pot, heat olive oil.  Add chicken and all spices and cook covered on medium heat until cooked through.  Remove chicken.  Let cool.  Add carrots and celery.  Remove skin (if not already skinless) and cut cooled chicken into bit size pieces.  Add back to pot with frozen vegetables.  Heat until warm.  Add butter and cook until melted.  Add flour.  Cook until flour is a sandy color and then add milk until just even with the vegetables.  Cook on high until thickened.  Transfer pie base to a pie pan and cover with pie crust.  In a 375 oven, cook until pie crust is just brown, about 20 minutes.  You may want to line your oven with foil, or place on a baking sheet.  Also, if you want to use a double crust instead of a top crust, you can.

Let cool, and serve with a salad.  And there you have it.  A complete, whole food, dinner, which costs way less than all those can goods, and contains tons less sodium. 

Enjoy, and until next time, God Bless you and yours. 

Chicken & Dumplins

Have you ever gone to the Cracker Barrel and thought:  Hey, I wish I could cook like this.  Well, you can, and I'm here to share one of my favorite recipes. This is NOT the exact Cracker Barrel Chicken and Dumplins recipe, but it tastes very close.  

I rarely cook with exact measurements, so most of these are guesses to what I normally use.  

Here's what you need to get you started:

Soup Base:

6 skinless, boneless chicken thighs, thawed, cut into cubes

2 stalks of celery, deveined and chopped

1 small red onion OR 3 scallions, diced

3 cloves of garlic, diced

1 can cream of chicken soup

splash of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)

2 chicken bouillon cubes

salt and pepper to taste

Biscuit Dough (my recipe, but you can use a bisquick, or any biscuit recipe that you like):

3 cups all purpose flour

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

9 Tbs Crisco (I used butter flavored)

milk (I don't have a measurement for this, but it's about a cup.)

In a large pot, or stock pot, heat EVOO on medium heat, and brown onions, garlic & celery.  Salt and pepper chicken and brown with vegetables.  Add bouillon cubes, cream of chicken soup, and 6-8 cups of water.  Bring to boil.

While soup base is cooking, mix biscuit dough.  In large bowl, mix flour, salt, and baking powder.  Cut in, with a pastry blender, the Crisco.  Pour in just enough milk to make a soft dough.  At this point, you can roll the dough, and cut to make little squares, but I enjoy pulling the dough apart and dropping it into the broth.

Once soup base is boiling, drop in biscuit dough, one piece at a time.  Bring Chicken and dumplins to a boil, turn down to a simmer, and simmer for about 10-13 minutes (allowing the dumplins to cook through.)

And that's it.  It makes about 8-10 servings.  I'm guessing the serving amount because it feeds my family of 6, some of us have seconds, and then I will normally eat it for lunch the next day.  If you have a small family, then I suggest freezing 1/2 and save for another meal.

Total cost: Not that much.  I normally have all ingredients on hand, so it's a quick, last minute throw together meal.

Enjoy!  Come back for more, yummy recipes.

Steak and Vegetable Soup

Ok, so a friend of a friend asked for this recipe, and here it is.  Be advised, all seasonings are approximate as I normally do "to taste."  As with all my recipes, feel free to add and remove ingredients as you like.

1-2 lbs of steak, seasoned with salt, pepper, and if you have it monetary steak seasoning, cut into bite size pieces
1 bag frozen mixed vegetables
1/4 large red onion
2 cloves garlic
1 can diced tomatoes (w/garlic and green peppers)
1 small green pepper
1-2 tsp olive oil
1-2 tsp butter (not margarine)
6-8 cups water
salt & pepper to taste
Worcestershire sauce to taste, but at least 3 TSP
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp cilantro

In a heated pan, (on med-high) combine olive oil, butter, worcestershire sauce, green pepper, onion, and garlic.  Sauté until onion is clear.  Add steak, oregano and cilantro.  Cook until steak is just brown. Add remaining ingredients and simmer until vegetables are just tender.

You can serve this with texas toast, or breadsticks.

Super easy, super healthy, super yummy.  

Enjoy.

Until next time.

My Own PCS Move

As I get ready for my own move back to the states, I realize that being organized, and staying that way is the key to a successful move.  This is my third trans-atlantic move, and it does get easier with each move.  My kids are bigger, and I've added two pets to the family, and you would have thought that it would be more hectic, but actually, it's not been too bad.  Now, to share why:

- I made a plan.  I set dates for shipment of my furniture, car, and unaccompanied baggage so that we have what we need, when we need it.  Just a few more trips to the post office, and we'll be all done.

- I got organized.  Well, as far as paperwork goes.  All of our important papers are all organized, in one carry on, ready to go.  

- It was teamwork.  We got all the kids excited for the move, and they are ready to help get things together for packing.  At first, they were a little upset that their toys and games were gone, but they adjusted well, and well I almost don't want to unpack them.

- I saved money.  Money was put into the savings account and it stayed there (for the most part).  With each paycheck, I put money into the savings account first, and unless we had an emergency, it stayed there.  For the bigger expenses, such as the dog crate, we already had the money saved, and it didn't hurt our monthly budget.

- I researched.  I called ahead to the schools to get information on when school starts, and other policies.  I googled utilities to see how much we'd spend.  I mapped the route from my new house to work.  I researched activities that we can do with the kids.  If you can think of it, we googled it.

If you plan ahead, your move, whether transatlantic or local, can be successful.

Salmon Alfredo

Hello Everyone!

This past Friday, Shawn and I visited a local Italian restaurant for lunch.  We both ordered a pasta dish with seafood.  The Italian restaurants here in Germany are notorious for putting all sorts of seafood in their pasta dishes....and the best part is, they don't charge extra for it.

So, while my pasta had all sorts of seafood, Shawn's was much simpler.  He had a blend of spinach noodles and plain noodles, salmon, and a sort of a Alfredo sauce.  So, without further ado, here is my take on the recipe.

Sauce:
3 TBS butter
2-3 TBS flour
1 pint light cream
1 TBS lemon-pepper
2 TBS Italian seasoning
2-3 cups skim milk
1/2 - 3/4 block parmesan cheese, grated
salt & pepper to taste

Noodles:
Tri-color rotini

Salmon:
3 filets salmon
lemon pepper to taste
salt & pepper to taste
1-2 tsp EVOO

Heat EVOO in a skillet over medium heat.  Season Salmon, and cook until done, set aside.

Cook noodles according to package directions.

In a skillet over medium heat, melt butter.  Add flour, and cook until it becomes the color of beach sand.  Add light cream and spices.  Stir until smooth.  Add 1/2 the cheese, and 1/2 the milk.  Stir until smooth.  Add remaining cheese to taste.  Add milk to thin sauce.  You'll want it thin because it'll thicken as it cools.

Flake fish with a fork.  Toss all ingredients into a bowl and stir until combined.  You'll want to serve this with a caesar salad.  Serves 6.

The one thing that I learned from making my own Alfredo sauce is that it is diverse.  You can tailor it to fit the dish.  Normally, I wouldn't add lemon pepper seasoning to Alfredo sauce, but it compliments the Salmon very well.

I hope you try this recipe and enjoy it with your family.

(Sorry for not posting pictures of this dish, but I'm in the middle of a move, and we are on borrowed cookware.)

God Bless!

Broccoli-Smoked Sausage Quiche'

Here's my first recipe for the new blog.  Sorry folks, no pics on this one.....but trust me, it's yummy.

Here's what you'll need:

1 head of fresh broccoli
1 Smoked Sausage
3/4 cup of diced bell peppers
1 prepared pie crust
dash of Italian seasoning
salt & pepper to taste
6 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350.

Line a pie dish with pie crust, set aside.

Heat a little bit of EVOO in a sauté' pan.  Sauté together sausage, peppers, & broccoli.  Season with salt, pepper & Italian seasoning to taste.  Pour into prepared pie pan.  Top with cheese.

Scramble eggs, 2 at a time with 1/4 cup of milk and pour into pie pan.  Continue to do this until dish is full.

Bake in 350 oven for 50-60 minutes or until firm.  Serve with a side salad.  Enjoy!

Normally I would adjust the spices, but since I'm in the middle of a Trans-Atlantic move, so my seasonings are minimal.  

Home Base Businesses...Getting Started

I was sitting here thinking of what to blog about this week, and while listening to Dani Johnson's 30 Day Bootcamp, it hit me.  I'm gonna blog about a choosing and/or starting a Home Based Business, but first, a little background information on Dani Johnson.

First, I'm only 7 days into Dani's 30 Day Bootcamp, and I'm completely inspired.  Dani was at one time homeless, and started a weight loss business out of the trunk of her car and at a phone booth.  At the time, she was 50 pounds over weight, and selling weight loss products.  While learning this, I've come to the conclusion that with enough determination, anyone can make a Home Based Business (HBB) work.

Before signing up with Beachbody, I've been approached with starting with Advocare, Amway, Visalus, Creative Memories, Scentsy, and plenty of others. I've ordered products from Visalus, and had a free sample with Advocare, and I am a Scentsy customer.  So, a skeptic of HBB's, I thought, how can anyone make any real money at a HBB?  Well, the answer is simple:  find a product that you believe in, and promote it.  Ok, it's not that simple, but it works for me, and here's why:

First: Choose a product that you are willing to use yourself.  No matter what you choose, you have to be a product of the product.  You can't sell a product that you aren't willing to use yourself.  Otherwise, how can you stand behind your product.  

Second:  Be willing to invest.  Yes, you must invest both time and money.  Your product isn't going to make you money if you aren't invested in it.  How can you sell Scentsy if you have a party at your home and your prospects can smell cat litter?  You have to invest money to get started.  Whether the start-up package costs $49.99 or $299, you have to start somewhere.  The more you invest, the more you can expect to get back once you start selling.  Most HBB companies have packages that are under $100, but eventually you're gonna have to upgrade if you wanna make money.

Third:  Get out there and invite, but do it smartly.  I've made mistakes in this area.  I started inviting too soon just simply because I was too excited about the products that I represent.  You HAVE to do your homework before you start selling.  You HAVE to know how a product works before advertising.

Fourth:  Do the training that your upline suggests!  My upline suggested Dani Johnson's 30 Day Bootcamp, and I'm doing it.  Additionally, I have found on my own: Chalene Johnson's 30 day Push Training (Chalene's Push Training is about getting organized, setting your priorities, and having goals, and meeting those goals.)

And finally: Don't give up!  I haven't been promoted to my next level yet, but I'm still working on it.  

So, if you are wondering about starting a HBB and are not sure, I encourage you to try Dani Johnson's 30 Day Bootcamp before you get started.  You'll learn so much, and best of all....it's free!