Category: Healthy


Oct
2013

Spicy Chicken Tortilla Soup

categories: Chicken, Healthy, Mexican, Soup
I wait all year for the weather to turn just the slightest bit of cold to bust out my soup pots.
Yes, I said pots…as in plural. What can I say? I love me some soup. My hands down absolute favorite kind??
Chicken Tortilla Soup!

I adore this stuff! I love the cheesy, thick, Americanized stew-like tortilla soup they sell at chain restaurants as well as the clear, spicy broth-like soup  you find at little Mexican restaurant hole-in-the-walls.
It’s actually one of the first things that I learned to “cook” in college.  My first encounter with this recipe came from an old home & garden magazine I was reading in my dentists’ office titled, “Five-Can Tortilla Soup”. 
I figured this was one recipe I could handle since  all I had in my cupboard at 21 was cans of food. I tore out the recipe from the magazine & hid it in my pocket thinking that the “dentist police” were for sure watching me & I would be banned from the office without getting my root canal. Guess what? Turns out no one gives a damn about a page of an old magazine when they are about to charge you $200+ to drill holes in your face. Lesson.  Learned. Still, I felt like a rebel & took my wrinkled recipe home with me feeling quite content that I got one over on that dental masochist.  I actually think I still have that recipe in a box somewhere… I keep it as proof to my children that their mom was once a bad ass ninja recipe thief. After I ended my crime spree, I started working on making what was an OK generic recipe into a delicious concoction of spices, chicken, fresh & canned veggies & fried tortillas. And so here is the fruit of my labor…no law breaking needed.
 Enjoy!

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Aug
2013

Breakfast Farro: Dried Fruit & Apple Infused Farro w/ Sweet Greek Yogurt

categories: Breakfast, Brunch, Healthy, Low Fat
I love me some carbs.
It’s not my fault. I was exposed to carbs at an early age.
Heck, my father would hide cookies in his nightstand, doling them out for tasks well done. 
I carried over this “carbs-as-a-reward” idea well into college.
I was a GREAT student…
and hundreds of “rewards” later, I was also 20lbs heavier.
Thanks, dad.
 First, I tried the whole no carb Atkins diet thing…
 
Turns out that Die-Hard-Atkins-Carb-free me = Homicidal-Rage-filled me.
No bueno.

It wasn’t until I started doing some real research on this Atkins thing, that I found out that 
NOT ALL CARBS ARE BAD!
I couldn’t believe it.
You mean I could eat a carb & not feel like I was doing the devil’s work?!
Yeah, you can totally sign me up for that.
However, with knowledge comes great responsibility.
I could eat a carb sure, but now I had to pay attention to the type of carb I was ingesting.
If I was going to eat rice, brown was better than white.
If I was going to eat bread, multigrain high-fiber was better than potato.
If I was going to eat a breakfast porridge, farro was better than oatmeal.
Um…what the heck is FARRO & how is this supposed to substitute my delicious microwavable apple cinnamon oatmeal with the dehydrated fruit??
So once again, I turned to the internet & here’s what I learned:
Farro (also known as emmer) is a type of whole grain that had once been widely cultivated in the ancient world but up until recently was mostly grown & consumed in Italy.  Like many other obscure & delicious things, the United States has begun to take notice & now you can find this nutrient-rich grain in most specialty stores.
Farro (also known as “emmer”) is a type of whole grain that had once been widely cultivated in the ancient world but up until recently was mostly grown & consumed in Italy.  Like many other obscure & delicious things, the United States has begun to take notice & now you can find this nutrient-rich grain in most specialty stores.
It is a complex carb containing twice the fiber & protein than modern wheat, low in gluten & rich in antioxidants, phytonutrients, lignans & betaine (click on the links for more info than I care to type).

I found mine at Whole Foods…(shocking, right?)  They have some pre-packaged boxes which are about $8.99/lb or you can head over to the bulk bins & get it for about $3.54/lb. I have to say, I didn’t notice a difference between the fancy boxed kind & the kind I took home in a bag. I treated the grain like I would quinoa or barley, boiled it in a 50/50 mix of apple juice & water, added some spices, honey, yogurt, sautéed dried fruit & voila!  Healthy breakfast carbs!

Enjoy!!

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