Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup

“But since soup mainly involves tossing everything in a pot and waiting,
it's one of my better dishes.”
― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

I don't have many soups in my repertoire...yet. This is one I have adapted to our taste over time. Plus with the amount of different illnesses that are going around how could you not want a bowl of chicken noodle soup. This uses the Shredded Chicken recipe that I posted last week.

If you re not a huge fan of lemon, you may want to cut the amount of lemon juice in half. The beauty of this recipe is your can tailor it to fit your preferred taste.

I love how the Shredded Chicken give this soup a homestyle feeling.

Nutritional Information (calculated on myfitnesspal.com): 6 servings, 162 calories, 18g carbs, 3g fat, 18g protein

Ingredients:

• 1/2 T Olive Oil
• 4 Garlic Cloves, minced
• 1 Large Yellow Onion, Chopped
  

German Pancake

"If you are not the one cooking, stay out of the way and compliment the chef."

 - Michael Strahan

I guess this means I have to stay out of the way and compliment then because Giuliana was the one who measured and mixed all the ingredients, and cracked the eggs. All I did was read the directions, pour it into the pan and operate the oven. That is how easy this recipe is, my 5 year old is the one who basically made this.

This is a recipe that I grew up with. It makes me think of a snow day from school because it is truly a comfort food. This winter recipe can bring a smile to even the grumpiest non-morning person when they walk into the kitchen and see this.

My kids love watching the sides "grow" up the edges of the pan. Giuliana ALWAYS tries to pick the piece with the tallest wall. I personally have only used Powdered Sugar as a topping but I have heard of other people using lemon juice. I guess I will have to try it at some point.

Giuliana whisking the eggs

Nutritional Information (calculated on myfitnesspal.com): 6 servings, 261 calories, 17g carbs, 17g fat, 10g protein

Ingredients:

• 6 T Salted Butter
• 6 Eggs
• 1 c Flour
  

Slow Cooker Shredded Chicken

"I always think if you have to cook once, it should feed you twice. If you're going to
make a big chicken and vegetable soup for lunch on Monday,
you stick it in the refrigerator and it's also for Wednesday's dinner."

 - Curtis Stone

That is the theory behind this recipe, over the next few posts and some more in the future I plan on showing how a simple process of shredding chicken from the slow cooker can make sooo many recipes! To start this is probably the easiest recipe I have ever done, let alone posted. It is literally only two ingredients and can be transformed into hundreds of recipes.

Nutritional Information (calculated on myfitnesspal.com): 48 (2 oz) servings, 64 calories, 0g carbs, 1g fat, 13g protein

This is less than half of the chicken that the recipe makes!!

Ingredients:

• 6 lbs Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
• 8 c Unsalted, Chicken Cooking Stock (I used Swanson)

Instructions:

1. Place all Chicken Breasts in the Slow Cooker
2. Cover Chicken with Cooking Stock.
3. Cook on low for 8 hours.
4. Remove chicken to a bowl and shred with 2 forks. 

Carrot Ginger Salad Dressing

"It takes four men to dress a salad: a wise man for the salt, a madman for the pepper, 

a miser for the vinegar, and a spendthrift for the oil."

-Anonymous

Have you eve been to a Japanese Steakhouse and had their salad to start? Normally I would not rave about a simple salad but there is something about the dressing that they have that I have never been able to recreate at home. I finally found a recipe that was close and I tweaked it to fit my taste. I forgot to take pictures of it but will make sure to add them the next time I make it. Also this is a really easy recipe, all you do is dump it in the blender.



Nutritional Information (calculated on myfitnesspal.com): 20 servings, 45 calories, 3g carbs, 4g fat, 0g protein

Ingredients:

• 1/3 C Canola Oil
• 1/3 C Rice Wine Vinegar
• 2 Large or 10 Baby Carrots
  

Mini Cinnamon Roll Pie Crust Bites

“I'm not a vegetarian! I'm a dessertarian!” 

― Bill Watterson

Let's be honest this is not a healthy recipe but it is a fun snack, breakfast side, or dessert. The kids loved these so much I forgot to take a picture until after they started "chowing down" on these. I love pie crusts, so making a cinnamon roll from them seemed like an easy and logical step.

I couldn't get a picture before Giuliana ate one.

Nutritional Information (calculated on myfitnesspal.com): 9 servings, 284 calories, 41g carbs, 15g fat, 2g protein

Ingredients:

• 2 Pre-Made Pie Crusts
• 4 T Light Butter, Melted
• 2 T Cinnamon
  

Ranch Burger Grill Packets

I didn't have a lot of time to get dinner going and needed a new idea. I had some ground beef and had heard about burger packets before so I thought I would try. Why not? If all else fails we have multiple restaurants close. (Not that we want to eat out.) These turned out nicely and I even had an extra to send for my Father-In-Law to eat since he was not able to make it for dinner.

On a separate note, if you subscribe to follow my blog in the upper right you will get notifications when a new recipe is posted. Additionally, please share the facebook post so I can help build my followers and at some point, these will not only be the recipes that I am making for dinner but also recipes I can experiment in smaller batches before feeding them to my test subjects. :-)

Let's be honest, I am not a food stylist but it tasted really good.

Nutritional Information (calculated on myfitnesspal.com): 6 servings, 227 calories, 16g carbs, 6g fat, 34g protein

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs Lean Ground Beef
• 2 Buttermilk Ranch Packet
• 2 Yukon Gold Potatoes, Sliced to 1/8-1/4" Thick
  

Butternut Squash Fries

We started a garden at our house this year. Only problem being we forgot to label what each plant was when we planted the seedlings. It became a big surprise to us what came up. I thought we had yellow squash growing but it turns out we were growing Butternut Squash really well. The plant has taken up so much of the yard that it has doubled the space our garden is taking up which was already a 15'x15' space. With that happy accident, I decided to try and use the first of what appears will be a plentiful harvest of Butternut Squash. So be prepared for more Butternut Squash Recipes to be coming in the future especially since not much else produced this year.

Nutritional Information (calculated on myfitnesspal.com): 6 servings, 149 calories, 17g carbs, 10g fat, 2g protein

Ingredients:

• 1 Large Butternut Squash
• 1/4 c Canola Oil
• 2 t Cumin
  

Banana Chocolate Pancakes

Giuliana had her first day of Kindergarten this week! The first full day I made these for her and she loved them!!

Nutritional Information (calculated on myfitnesspal.com): 4 servings, 252 calories, 35g carbs, 11g fat, 4g protein

Ingredients:

• 1/2 Banana, Mashed
• 3/4 c Water
• 1 T Maple Syrup

Guess who is back...WE ARE!!

At long last, I am back with new recipes. It has been almost 3 years since I have posted and a lot has happened since then.

1. We moved
2. Our son, Nello, was born
3. Our daughter, Giuliana, is starting kindergarten
4. We celebrated our 7th Wedding Anniversary
5. I have returned to school to obtain my teaching certificate

I will be going away from posting points values of recipes as I do not have access to a system that can calculate those. If someone does have access to one that can calculate I will be glad to add it. My goal is to create more of my own recipes to share rather than the just sharing other peoples recipes which have been the majority of my posts up to this point. My first recipe will be posted tomorrow. Until then, enjoy a few pictures of my family from the past three years.

Giuliana's Dance Recital 12-2015

Giuliana picked out our cat, Diamond 4-2016

2016 at the Disney Luau

About to jump out of a perfectly good airplane  09-2016

Christmas in Disney World 2016

Nello with his namesake 1-2017

On a morning walk in Vegas 4-2017

Disney 07-2017