Stew and Soup to Warm You Up!

I’m back! It’s been busy around these parts, so I haven’t really had time to blog about my cooking. I HAVE been cooking and it seems to be going better. I wonder if that has anything to do with the no blogging. Maybe it’s less pressure or maybe I’ve just been cooking easy things.

It’s my favorite and yet least favorite time of the year. I love the holidays! The decorations, the music, the togetherness, and the food all make me happy. Unfortunately I live in Upstate NY, so along with all the cheer and festivities we have snow. The madness has started intensely this year. I don’t think we normally have the amount of snow we are getting right now until January or February. The cold, the wet, the driving…bah humbug!

Taking into account the snowy weather I decided to make a stew and a soup. Both are super easy to make so I wanted to share them with you in case you are also knee deep in snow and need heating up.

The stew was just a basic chicken stew. You take a pound of chicken breast and cut it into ½ inch cubes. I browned it with ½ of a chopped onion. Then you add whatever vegetables you want. I put in some celery, carrots, and peas. The recipe calls for a 16oz bag of frozen stew vegetables. I didn’t see that at Wegman’s, so I added fresh veggies except for the peas, they were frozen. You are supposed to add one jar of gravy. I forgot to buy that so Anthony made some from scratch. He used the juices from the browned chicken, flour, water, butter, and salt (I think that’s it). Last I added some rubbed sage, dried thyme, and ground black pepper. Let that simmer on the stove for 15-20 minutes.

Final Product:
It was quite tasty and it just felt really comforting to eat. Anthony’s home made gravy was much better than the jarred kind. I’m glad I forgot to buy it. I will definitely make this again and maybe add some potatoes next time.

Soup is wonderful. I just love it. I could probably eat it every day as long as I was given a variety. I saw a recipe for Refried Bean Soup on a blog recently that looked delicious and as I was browsing my cook books I found a recipe for it. I’m not sure if the blog recipe was more complicated than the one I found, but I was happy to see how simple this soup is too make. Take a big can (28 oz) of crushed tomato and 1 small chopped onion and bring that to a boil. Once it boils, lower the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. After that you add refried beans (I used two 15 oz cans), 1 can of chicken broth, and some spices. The recipe just calls for cilantro, but we don’t use that in our house so I added chili powder and parsley. You stir that together and let it simmer for 15 minutes. That’s it people! It’s that simple. If you would like some crunch; take some corn tortillas and cut them into strips. Bake them at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes. Top with whatever other garnishes you want. We used sour cream and Monterey jack cheese.

Final Product:
This is a very hearty soup. You probably won’t want to have grilled cheese or anything with it. We just had sourdough bread with both of the recipes (Anthony loves sourdough bread!). I’m going to find the other recipe for this soup and see what the differences are, but this was satisfying and I would have it again.

I’m cooking one more time this week and maybe again on the weekend. I plan on posting my holiday cookie making too! I missed blogging! This is fun!