This was part of the ‘Cajun Birthday Lunch’
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When I don’t have a lot of time I make ‘Cheater’s Jambalaya’ in a crock pot. But reading John Besh’s awesome My New Orleans cookbook inspired me to take one for the team and stand up at the stove for a bit. However unlike his recipe suggests I did not use a giant ’spade’ to stir my pot. Yikes. That’s a lot of jambalaya.

ingredients:
1 pound of bacon, chopped
4 boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1″ cubes
1-1/2 pounds smoked sausage, diced
3 onions, diced
2 bell peppers, seeded and diced
5 stalks of celery, diced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 dried bay leaf
1-1/2 Tablespoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1-1/2 teaspoons celery seed
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1-1/2 teaspoons fresh ground black pepper
3 cups canned crushed tomatoes
3 cups chicken stock
2 pounds cooked shrimp, peeled and deveined

Heat a large stock pot cook on medium high. Cook the bacon until slightly crisp. Pull the bacon out to drain, and set aside. Make sure you leave the fatty oil in the pot. Oh yes. You will need that.

Now add the chicken (still on medium high) and the smoked sausage – cook until the chicken is browned. Add the onion and cook until carmelized a bit.

Then add the bell peppers, celery and garlic. Cook until softened, just about 5 minutes.

Add the thyme, bay leaf, paprika, cayenne, salt, pepper and celery seed. Cook and stir well, about 4 minutes.

Turn up the heat to high and add the tomatoes and chicken stock. Once it reaches a boil, lower the heat and simmer for about 30+ minutes. Check and stir now and again, you really want the flavors to mix up.

Remember that bacon you cooked and set aside? Yeah, throw that back in and while you’re at it add the shrimp and simmer for another 10 minutes. Serve over rice and you are ready to EAT! (Also goes REALLY good with Sweet Cornbread Muffins…)

Sometimes you just can’t leave the house and you have to pull from the pantry. That’s how I came up with was this quick but hearty soup. (If you don’t have pastina you could use rice just as well.) Even the meat-hating Kid loves this!

ingredients:
2 cans chicken broth
4 cups water
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/8th teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon oregano
2 cloves chopped garlic
2 cups meatballs (I keep these in my freezer)
1/2 cup corn
1/4 cup pastina (tiny pasta)

I like to make meatballs from scratch and then just keep them in the freezer. I like to use this recipe – ifreezing them for later makes it easy to add them to pastas, or soups or sometimes I just give them to the boys as a main dish. Otherwise just buy frozen meatballs for this recipe.

In a large pot add the chicken broth and water and bring to a boil. Add the onion powder, paprika, oregano and chopped garlic.

Then add the meatballs, corn and pastina.

Pastina is just super tiny pasta. I like it because it adds a little heft to a soup but without being large pieces of pasta overwhelming the soup. If you don’t have pastina you can substitute with rice instead. Just cook until the pasta or rice is softened.

I like to serve this soup with Sweet Cornbread Muffins, the Kids love this meal on a cold winter’s day. (It’s 75 degrees here in November, shh.)

My mom always made this for us as kids. I know, we’re Southern like that.

I don’t have time to stand over a hot stove so I made up this jambalaya recipe for a crock pot. Thus the ‘cheaters,’ as the pot does all of the work except for shoveling it into your mouth.

ingredients:
1 chicken breast, cut into cubes
1 large onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 (28 ounces) can diced tomatoes (DO NOT DRAIN)
2 cups fully cooked smoked sausage
1 Tablespoon parsley flakes
½ teaspoon dried thyme
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon Tabasco
¾ pound frozen fully cooked shrimp
3 cups cooked rice

Put the chicken breast in the bottom of the crock pot. Add all of the ingredients, EXCEPT the shrimp. Stir to combine.

Cover and cook on low for 7 hours or high for 5 hours.

Add the shrimp at the end, stir up – the heat will thaw the shrimp just right.

Serve over cooked rice. Really tasty, and wasn’t that the easiest? It should last you a few days, or none at all depending how big your family is. No mess, either.

This recipe is adapted from Martha Stewart’s Everyday FOOD magazine years ago. I still make it fairly often because it’s so easy to throw together on a night when you don’t have dinner planned. I changed it up (you’ll see why) and it’s easy to add and subtract ingredients based upon what you have in your pantry.

Ingredients:
3 cups water
2 cans chicken broth
sliced ginger
sliced garlic
4 green onions sliced finely
shitake mushrooms – soaked and sliced
frozen wonton/dumplings
frozen corn
frozen spinach

To a large pot, add the water, chicken stock, green onions, ginger and garlic. Bring to a boil…

Meanwhile, soak the mushrooms in a bowl of water til they are good and soft, then slice them thinly, removing the stems. Throw the mushrooms in there and boil for about 5 minutes.

Now here’s where I venture off – Martha calls for baby ears of corn and watercress. Nasty.

I just threw in regular frozen corn and frozen spinach, just as good, if not BETTER.

Add all that to the pot along with the “dumplings”, we call it gyoza, but whatever – boil for about 8 minutes til the dumplings are ready.

How fast was this? And so tasty!

A Hawaii classic, this is the short cut way. This recipe is so easy it’s ridiculous. I remember making it a lot when I was trying to get the babies started on solid foods. The kids loved it. Personally I find it very comforting when I have a cold or just feel cold.

Ingredients:
2 cans chicken broth
2 chicken breasts
2 (serving) packets of long rice
1 small brown onion
4 green onions
couple of slices of ginger

Put the chicken breasts in the bottom of the pot. Sit the long rice bundles next to them. Chop onions and throw on top. Nestle the ginger into the mix.

Pour cans of chicken broth over the ingredients, then add enough water to cover the chicken and the noodles.

Turn on the pot to HIGH.

Go away.

Come back 4 hours later.

Add salt and pepper to taste. You don’t have to put the onions – in fact my kids insist that I DON’T. You can also add mushrooms if you like.

This looks like sludge, but it’s delish – as a side dish or a main dish!

I came home and do what I always do to relieve stress. Cook. A LOT. The Kid has been asking for Chicken Soup with Rice ever since my mom bought him the Really Rosie soundtrack. Hello, suddenly she thinks it’s 1975 again. So I made up a recipe – it’s SUPER quick. You have no excuse to not make it, that’s how quick it is.

ingredients:
1/2 cup chopped carrot
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped celery
3 tablespoons butter or stick margarine
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
32 ounces chicken broth
2 cups cubed cooked chicken
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice

1-1/2 cups cooked rice

Chicken soups always start out with a mirepoix, that’s just carrots, celery and onions. Well I happened to see ready made mirepoix at Trader Joe’s and I thought, what the heck, I’ll give it a go. It was great. I just threw that sucker in there. Highly recommended.

So in a large pot, melt the butter and then add the carrot, onion and celery or toss in your readymade mirepoix and live in the future, baby! Cook until soft if you like, but I like mine to have a little bite. Then stir in flour until blended, and carefully pour in the broth.

Now as for chicken, same thing. You can buy frozen pre-cooked chicken or just grab a ready made rotisserie and chop that thing up. So add the chicken, salt, pepper and garlic and onion powders, then bring it to a boil.

Cover and simmer for 10 minutes then turn the heat to low and pour in the milk and lemon juice. The lemon juice really brings out a lot of flavor. Let it simmer about 5 mins more, and you’re ready to serve! You’re probably wondering, where’s the rice in this chicken rice soup? Well, I cook mine beforehand, and put it in the bowls and spoon the soup on top. It’s much quicker than waiting for it to boil and soften. However while most recipes say to use long grain, I actually use a Japanese short grain rice. I like the texture and it seems to work well with the soup. It’s all up to you.

Super easy and great with cornbread muffins.

Since the kids love mochi, I thought that mochi (not the sweet kind) in soup, would be perfect. Think of it as an asian cross between Albondigas, and Matzo Ball Soup. It has pork meatballs and little mochi balls with ham inside. I make the BALLZ tiny and bite size. The kids like it.

ingredients (meatballs):
1 lb ground pork
1/2 can water chestnuts, chopped fine
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon oil
salt and pepper to taste

ingredients (mochi balls):
1-1/2 cup mochiko
1/2 cup cooked ham, finely minced
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2/3 cup chicken broth

ingredients (soup):
70 ounces of chicken broth (or 5 cans)
sliced kamaboko
julienned carrots
green onions

I usually make the meatballs first, earlier in the day, and keep them in the fridge. It’s just one less thing to think about once you get going on the soup. Combine the meatball ingredients together. Mix well and shape into small balls approx 1/2 inch. Set aside in the fridge.

Put the chicken broth in a stockpot on high while you make the mochi balls. Combine the mochiko, ham, salt and pepper. Gradually add the broth to form a dough. It will be crumbly, don’t worry. Pinch the dough into small 1/2 balls. Set aside.

Once the broth starts boiling, add the meatballs and cook for approx. 8 minutes. Then add the mochi balls and cook for another 4 minutes. Now you can add the kamaboko, carrots and green onions to the boiling pot of soup.

This recipe is a lot easier than it sounds. Don’t let the amount of ingredients fool you, or all that ball making. It’s really fast and well worth it.

I make this soup a lot cause it’s easy, but especially when there is sickness in the house (read: ALWAYS). It’s quick and I don’t even consider it a recipe, more like a throw together. When the kids are well, I serve it up with some yummy Croque Monsieur and they are happy little boys.

3 (14 oz) cans chicken broth
1/2 cup dry pasta
1/2 cup cooked chicken, chopped up
1/4 cup frozen corn
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper

Before we start, let me just say that you can add anything to this. Carrots, celery, ham, but my kids won’t touch the stuff. As far as pasta, small is better and I found these cute Alphabet pastas my local Trader Joe’s.

Pour the cans of broth into a big saucepan and set to high. When it starts boiling, add the pasta, and cook for 10 minutes. See, that’s the easy part, there is no cooking the pasta beforehand or draining or what have you. Don’t sweat it.

Then add the chicken. Add the corn. Add the pepper. THE END. Told you it was easy. I’m slightly embarrassed. The taste is phenomenal, considering.

Of course you can make this as spicy as you want, but this is just a plain, simple, stick your guts kind of delicious soup. Perfect on a cold winter’s day.

ingredients:
6 corn tortillas
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, chopped
2 medium carrots
2 celery stalks
2 tomatoes, chopped
2 cans chicken broth
3 cups water
½ cup corn
2 cups roasted chicken
1 cup baked ham or cooked smoked sausage
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon oregano

corn tortillas
jack cheese
avocado
lime

Cut the corn tortillas into thin strips. Heat the oil in a pan and stir the tortilla strips around until crispy. Let drain on a wire rack, add salt to taste. Set these aside, you will use these at the end to garnish the top.

Heat oil in a soup pot. Add the garlic, onion, carrots and celery, until softened. Add the tomatoes, chicken broth and water, stir and heat through. Add the chicken, corn and the ham. Add in the seasonings, pepper, cumin and oregano. Let simmer for 10 minutes.

Cut up a few corn tortillas into strips and put them in the bottom of the bowls. Ladle the soup on top.

Garnish with cheese, avocado, lime wedges and your fried tortilla strips.