Chicken & Potato Soup with Bacon

Hello! I swear I haven't given up on blogging. I have a wonderful recipe to share, but first, some updates: These last few weeks have been very fun, busy and exciting. First, Zak and I took a road trip to visit some friends in beautiful Salt Lake City, we learned a lot about Mormons, had some delicious milkshakes (SLC has milkshake and frozen yogurt places to serve as a gathering place for the youth since many of them don't drink alcohol), enjoyed the lovely mountains, and had a bonfire. All in all, the perfect weekend vacation.

 

The Great Salt Lake

Then, we got back to Denver and I turned 25, which means I am no longer as young as I think I am. Yikes! You know when you fill out a survey and it asks you your age range? Well I just moved up a whole age range, 25-30, not to mention I got summoned for my first even jury duty (didn't get called). All of this, plus the fact that I am currently incubating a child leads me to believe that I must really and truly be getting older. I suppose I will just have to embrace it :)

Finally, on my birthday we went to get an ultrasound, with hopes of finding out what type of little person is residing in my belly. I remember the day before, when it was still a big mystery, I said to Zak "tomorrow, we will be living in a completely different world than we are today, a world where we'll know if we are going to have a son or a daughter." Such a crazy experience! Well I laid on that table for an hour, watching the little thing (that actually looks like a baby now, and not just a goo ball) thrashing around on the screen. The tech did all the measurements, but my belly button was creating a shadow right over the goods, so we were kept in suspense. Then a more seasoned tech came in, and within a matter of moments the great mystery was revealed:

we are going to have a girl! She is growing right on track, everything is looking healthy and good. It really was the best birthday present ever. Afterwards, my dear husband surprised me with a celebration at my favorite pizza place with all our friends, and a delicious gift bag of some of my favorite cheeses (he truly knows the way to my heart!). So we celebrated, and I had the most perfect birthday ever.

Now, for a delicious soup recipe. I got this from the meal planning website Relish! which I adore. I love to make up my own recipes, but I can get stuck in a rut, and Relish! is a great way to get inspire by new recipes. Basically you create a menu for your week by selecting from their recipes, then they create a pdf with a shopping list and all the recipes you selected. The shopping list is great, because they organized it by aisle in the grocery store, and they even have a category for stuff you probably already have (olive oil, flour, salt, etc.) I also love that they include the nutritional info for each recipe. I have been using this service for over a year now, and I love it. It eliminates the whole "I just spent $60 on groceries, but there is nothing to eat" situation, now I use everything I buy which saved us money, and I have picked up some amazing recipes. *disclaimer* I am not paid to recommend this service. I simply felt compelled to share this because it has made my life easier, and is a service I really value.

So here is the recipe, this soup is easy to make, and so satisfying to eat. I did the bacon differently than the recipe, I just cooked it separately, and crumbled it up, adding it to the soup with the potatoes. I also used about half the cream, because I can't handle super creamy soups.

Chicken and Potato Soup with Bacon
Prep and cook time: 45 minutes 2 tablespoons butter 1 teaspoon garlic, minced 1 white onion , chopped 6 bacon slices, sliced 2 leeks , washed and sliced 2 tablespoons all purpose flour 4 cups chicken broth 1 pound new potatoes, chopped into 1/2 inch dice 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into cubes 4 tablespoons heavy cream   coarse salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste 1/4 cup Italian parsley, chopped per serving: 438 calories; 31 grams protein; 24 grams total fat; 3 grams fiber; 10 grams saturated fat; 23 grams carbohydrates; 99 mgs cholesterol; 1006 mgs sodium; 10 weight watcher points		[1] Melt the butter in a large stock pot over medium heat. Add the garlic and onion and cook, stirring for 3-4 minutes until slightly softened. Add bacon and leeks and cook for another 5-7 minutes, stirring. [2] In a bowl, mix the flour with enough of the broth to make a smooth paste and stir it into the pan. Cook, stirring for 2 minutes. Pour in the remaining broth, then add the potatoes and chicken. Season well with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for 25 minutes until the chicken and potatoes are tender and cooked through. [3]

Sweet Potato and Goat Cheese Empanadas

I love empanadas. In addition to being one of my favorite things to eat, they are also one of my favorite things to cook. I love foods that you can really get creative with, and when it comes to empanada filling, the sky is the limit! They can be sweet or savory, vegetarian or carnivore friendly, you can just look in your cupboard and fridge and use whatever you have on hand. Which is exactly what I did for these.

I also pride myself in my ability to make a pretty delicious pastry crust. Empanada dough is very similar to making a pie crust. I just use an egg instead of water, and cut in the butter a little more thoroughly, to help keep the pastry from crumbling so much when you eat it. One thing that has completely revolutionized my pastry crust making has been to use a food processor to cut in the fat, rather than doing it by hand. You can do it in half the time, therefore keeping the butter colder, and this results in a flakier crust. I highly recommend trying this next time you make any kind of pastry crust. I might actually write an entire other post just on pastry crust alone.

Without further ado:

Sweet Potato and Goat Cheese Empanadas
(makes 6)


Filling:
1-2 Sweet potatoes
2 cloves garlic sauteed in olive oil
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 Crushed hot chili pepper
1/4 soft goat cheese
Salt to taste

Cook the sweet potatoes thoroughly (either by baking or microwaving them). Scoop the cooked potato into a medium bowl and mash to your preferred consistency. Heat up some olive oil in a skillet, then add about 2 cloves worth of minced garlic and saute until the garlic is just starting to brown. Pour the garlic and oil into the mashed sweet potatoes, then mix in the apple cider vinegar, crushed red pepper, salt and soft goat cheese (or feta). Once this is all mixed together, cover and set aside.

Dough:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup cold butter
1 egg

In the bowl of a food processor mix the flour and salt. Take the butter out of the fridge and cut it into several pieces, then add them to the flour mixture. Pulse the mixture several times until it looks crumbly with BB sized pieces of butter. Now add the egg and pulse again, just until the dough starts to come together into one piece. Put the bowl of the processor in the fridge to keep the butter from melting. Make a space to roll out the dough, either on your cutting board or counter and lightly flour the surface. Dump out the dough onto the surface and get a little flour on your hands. Form the dough into one cylinder and cut into 6 different pieces. Use a rolling pin to roll out each piece to approximately a 3.5in circle.  As you are working with the dough, try to handle it as little as possible. The ultimate goal here is to keep the butter from melting and mixing into the dough completely. This is what gives pastry the light flakiness.

Once you have your 6 circles of dough, spoon some of the filling into them and fold the dough in half. press the edges together, then press a fork around them to create the cute little lines. Place them on a lined baking sheet and bake at 350 F, for 15-20 minutes or until the edges start to brown.

One last note, BE CAREFUL taking your first bite, the filling basically becomes molten lava. I break them in half to let out some of the steam before I take my first bite.

Strawberry Cake with Vanilla Creme

We are finally out of the Carriage House. I apologize for the lack of posts lately, for we were moving into a temporary place (before we finally move into our new house in April) and it took me about three days to get stuff unpacked! While I am sad for leaving the Carriage House behind, one thing I will NOT miss is the oven. It was only 20 inches wide (about half the size of a regular range) and the temp inside the oven was super wacky, causing many many baking mishaps.  In celebration of being able to use a regular oven again I decided to bake a cake!

This cake is based off of a regular white sheet cake recipe, but using frozen strawberries gives the cake a satisfyingly soft crumbly texture. The creme is basically a homemade marshmallow creme with vanilla extract, but you could use real vanilla bean if you happen to have it.

 

Strawberry White Cake

3 cups sifted cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups white sugar
1 1/8 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups chopped frozen strawberries 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour two 9 inch round cake pans, or a single rectangular one. In a medium bowl whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl cream the butter or margarine and white sugar until light and fluffy. In a food processor, chop the strawberries until they are as small as you like. I did mine very small so that the cake was flavored with the strawberries and had little red flecks in it, but no big chunks. Mix in the strawberries and the vanilla. In three additions alternately beat in the flour mixture and the milk into the creamed mixture. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the top is golden.

Homemade Vanilla Marshmallow Creme

 
2 egg whites
1 cup corn syrup
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a bowl combine the egg whites, corn syrup, powdered sugar and vanilla beat on high with an electric mixer for about 6 to 7 minutes. The longer you beat it the stiffer it gets. So if you like a thick creme continue beating a little longer. You may also add more powdered sugar if you want to thicken the creme.

T-Shirt Quilt

I feel like I am constantly trying to come up with creative ways to de-clutter my life. When I was single, all I needed to do was fill up some trash bags full of stuff I was sick of looking at and take it to the goodwill. In face, I have been almost compulisive in my purging of stuff. This worked great for me...but then I married Zak. Zak is a pack rat, no he's not to the level of those scary hoarder people, not even close. Let's just say he places strong sentimental value in many of his material possesions, and wants to keep them around forever (and ever). I have had a hard time coming to understand this, since until we began our live together, I had just gotten rid of anything I didn't use anymore, why keep it if it isn't uselful? Through the years I have come to appreciate that some items truly are special, so it's safe to say we have both grown together around this issue...that is until we moved in together, and I discovered the giant bags of T-shirts left over from when he owned his own screen printing company.

"Zak, can I take these to the goodwill this weekend?"
"No! I'm keeping those!"
"B-but they're not even in your size, you'll never wear them..."
"Jess, I'm keeping them."

I think we argued about these shirts for the entire first 4 months of marriage. You see these just aren't any old t-shirts, these are shirts that have Zak's own designs on them, and he didn't want to get rid of them, not even duplicates. I tried to understand this as much as I could, but I just couldn't justify having three industrial sized trash bags of shirts sitting around for the rest of our lives. So I started to get creative.

I finally convinced him to donate the blank shirts once we identified that it was the designs he really cared about and not the actual shirts. Then we set aside all the shirts in his size, that he can wear (I folded and put them in a rubbermaid container that fits under the bed, no more trash bags!). After that we were left with one big bag of shirts. If we were going to keep these shirts, they couldn't just sit in a bag, he couldn't even enjoy them that way. Then an idea came to me...T-shirt quilt!

I thought convicing Zak to let me cut up his shirts was going to be impossible, but I still brought it up casually...and he was stoked! Needless to say, I set to work immediately. I am a complete novice when it comes to sewing so my mother helped me get started.

I started by plotting out a basic pattern section for the t-shirt designes with four different cut-out shapes. I think using different sizes makes the quilt look much more interesting than just having the full front of each shirt in a one-size cut-out.

Kind of looks like Easter M&Ms 

 

Then I calculated how many of each shape I would need to make a queen sized quilt. Then the fun part, I started cutting away, which took about a week. Once I finally had all the cut-outs, I started sewing the pattern sections together. Then I sewed all the sections together to complete the front of the quilt.

Back side of the shirts

 

After I had the front done, I sewed it to the piece of flannel I got for the back. I did this like you would do a pillow case, leaving one side open. Then I slid the batting into the quilt and sewed up the last side. Finally I sewed around each pattern section to hold the batting in place, I used red thred that contrasts nicely with the black and white flannel. Here is the finished product:

 

 Hooray, cool, cozy and sentimental (note the ninjas on the bottom!)

I have no idea if this is the proper way to make a quilt. I just went with what seemed easiest to me. One thing I would definitely do differently next time is to sew the front piece to the batting, then sew on the back, and complete with stiching around the sections. Trying to get the batting into the quilt when I had already sewed the front to the back was a HUGE pain in the ass. and it ended up being all wrinkley inside and I went insane trying to smooth it, lol. Other than that this process was a really fun way to improve my sewing skills, and de-clutter my house a little bit. Most  importantly, it now allows my husband to enjoy the shirts he spent his early 20s designing instead of keeping them hidden in a bag :) 

I also plan to frame some more of the shirts that didn't make it into the quilt, so we can have a cool wall display as well. Now if I could only come up with an equally sweet way to use all of his old notebooks from college...

I'm back and blogging for two

Well, I just fell off the face of the blogging world didn't I?

My last post was July 4th of last year, and then my life completely changed, and blogging fell by the wayside. I quit my office job, I became (am still becoming) a yoga instructor, and most shockingly, in early November, I became pregnant! The little one is due to make an appearance in early August!

Also, our life in a carriage house is coming to an end, we have bought a duplex and will be moving into one half and renting out the other. I really like the name of my blog, so I am going to keep it even though we are moving, in honor of the spirit of the year spent residing here.

I had a very tough first trimester, in which food basically became my worst enemy for a while, very very sad. I am finally feeling better, so I am easing myself back into the kitchen. So expect a slow start with recipe posts. BUT! I have started DIYing and crafting and sewing! Expect many more DIY posts, especially when we move into our new place in April. I will be focusing on up-cycling random thrift store stuff into fabulous home decor. And of course starting in late April I will be starting my garden! I am making a dedicated effort to come back to blogging I have missed it dearly.

One last thing, I will try to keep this blog from becoming a mothering blog, as I am sure most of my life will be overridden with baby stuff for a while, this will be my refuge :)

Oh yeah....and happy Valentine's Day!

Oh-ho say can you see...

A three day weekend?
Pizzas on the grill?
My grandma's 83 birthday?
Taking cool pictures with sparklers?
Fireworks with cheesy music blasting in sync?

Independence day has always been a big deal in my family, because it is my grandma's birthday! We always have a big BBQ at her house and then walk across the street to the golf course for an awesome fireworks show! I'm super excited.

Then...next week is my last week at work!!! Whooooo! After that, Zak and I are going to Chicago for 4 days, and then driving to Michigan to visit one his sisters and her family. I can't wait!

I still haven't taken any pictures of my garden, because I am a horrible slacker blogger, and am rarely home when the sun is out, due to my YTTP. Soon though, I promise :)

Will post grill pizza recipes next week, happy holiday weekend friends!

Pot Holders!!

I firmly believe that it makes life a little bit more enjoyable if you have everyday items that delight you. For example, getting a toothbrush in your favorite color rather than plain white, or a coffee thermos in a pretty floral pattern rather than a plain silver one.

One of my sisters in law (sister in laws?) well, she is my husband's sister, and therefore my sister too. She is a professional costume designer, and is very talented at sewing things. She has recently opened up a little etsy shop to sell amazingly cute pot holders, they are perfect examples of how to make an everyday item something delightful! She sent me a pair for my birthday a while back, and I absolutely adore them. They are made with beautifully vibrant fabric, and are very high quality (better than you would get from target! lol)

Please, if you are looking for a new pair of potholders, or searching for a nice housewarming gift for somebody, check out her shop, Canezou on etsy.

Here are my little beauties

I love them so!

Black Beans

When I was a child, I had a very unpleasant experience with beans. A boy sitting at my lunch table chewed up his beans and spit them on to my tray (little asshat). I was so disgusted with this that I never ate a bean again, until my wedding day. Our good friend was the cook for the catering company we hired, and he was so proud of his black bean recipe, that I had to eat some, or risk hurting his feelings. If you were ever a picky eater as a kid you can imagine the internal battle that took place within my head as I got ready to take that first bite. "but...but I don't like beans...I HATE them!!" "yeah, but if you don't at least take one bite and tell him how amazing they are, he will be so sad, because he was so excited to make them for you!" So I did it....and I tell you, I can't believe how delicious black beans are! The whole point of this little allegory is that stubbornness rarely pays off, and can even make you miss out on something delicious for 15 years.

I have made up for lost time however, and have come up with a simple and delicious recipe for black beans that you can use for burritos, eat over some brown rice, or just enjoy alone, as a side. I made these last night, and what made them even better is that I was able to use cilantro and jalapeno (sorry I don't know how to do the tilde thing above the n) from our garden, so satisfying!

JFB Black Beans

1 can of organic black beans
1/4 cup olive oil
1 small yellow onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, diced finely
1 jalapeno, diced
1 tsp lime juice
1 handful of cilantro, diced finely

Warm some olive oil in a sauce pan. When the oil is hot, add the onion, garlic, and jalapeno. Cook until the garlic starts to brown, and the onion is translucent.

 Drain the black beans and add them to the pot. Lower the heat to medium and squirt the lime juice over the beans and stir everything up so it is well mixed.

When the beans are well heated, mix in the cilantro, make sure to do this right before you serve because fresh herbs loose their flavor if they are cooked too long. That's it, it's a very easy process :) Enjoy!


Black beans are incredible nutritious. They are low in calories, fat free, high in fiber, high in protein, and contain the entire daily recommended intake for hard to find vitamins such as folate. If you would like to read more about the nutrition profile for beans, or any other food for that matter, check out whfoods.org, here is the link to the article on black beans. I really like whfoods because it's easy to read, and includes a little history and also gives advice on choosing the food at the store (like how to pick ripe produce) as well as how to cook the various foods. It is a cook friendly nutrition database, by that I mean, they do not sacrifice the flavor of a dish just to make it as low in calories or fat as possible. They also believe that health is not just about the absence of disease, rather, it is a state of happiness, and freedom. I heart them :)

Holy Cow!

I just put in my resignation at my job! I had a revelation on Friday that this was it, I was done working here. I'm not really motivated to do a good job anymore, and me leaving is best for everyone. My supervisor was really nice and understanding when I told her. So now I just have 3 more weeks left and I'm out!

What comes next?

I am going to be looking for some kind of yoga related job, but until I am actually a certified teacher I can't start teaching. I might just get a part time waitress job, or working  retail, just to tide me over until I get enough teaching gigs. We'll see what I can find. Honestly, I am just excited for a change of scenery. I feel like my life is becoming everything I dreamed it would be.

I fully intend on keeping this blog and updating it as much as possible with my kitchen adventures and other random musings. Don't be surprised if I start quoting ancient Sanskrit texts, because I have been reading lot's of them lately for my YTT ;)

I have a few posts planned for this week, including a garden update, so stay tuned!

Pretzel Turtles...not as weird as it sounds.

Yes, I have to review another recipe from another blogging buddy, Ali from Three Baking Sheets to the Wind.

This Saturday, all the folks in my YTTP got together for a BBQ, except it ended up being more of a dinner party inside due to some completely un-Colorado-y rain that lasted the entire day (our rain usually only lasts 10 minutes!). Well our get together was a pot-luck, and I wanted to bring something snacky and fun. Lucky for me, the day I decided to search for recipes was the day the Ali decided to do this post on Pretzel Turtles.

She found this recipe from Rachael Ray Everyday, but if you are going to try these, you must use Ali's version, because let me tell you, she is one funny gal...just go to the link and see for yourself. Her pictures also make following the recipe extra enjoyable :)

Just so you know what your are getting yourself into: these are basically pretzel nuggets, wrapped in caramel, dipped in chocolate, covered in almonds... I know...YUM! They are easy and fun to make, however, for me, they were time consuming. This is a perfect thing to do on a weekend afternoon, possibly with children (they would have a blast wrapping the caramel!).These little guys are delicious little paradoxes, sweet and salty, crunchy and chewy. Also, since I have been posting so much about eating healthily lately, I feel the need to balance it out with something indulgent.

Enjoy!

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Disclaimer: These photos were taken as I was rushing out the door, I am sorry for their poor quality, they do not do the pretzel turtles justice, what-so-ever. A better camera is definitely on my list of things I want.