No Soup for You!

The Soup Nazi I am not! I love soup. A few years ago, I was the Executive Chef at a college and ran the college cafe. We served 3 soups daily, one was an asian soup made by my Chinese cooks. The other two I made first thing in the morning when I got in. Since the college was a Health Professions school, the students and faculty wanted healthy food. I tried to make one of the soups a vegetarian or vegan soup. The other was basically whatever we could create.  Cleaning out the walk-in cooler with leftover veggies or meats from lunch the day before was the best way to avoid waste and really have some fun. Figuring out new ways to make cream soups without cream utilized my culinary education. It was fun, creative and tasty. I think the comptroller appreciated the fact it was a low food cost item to sell in the cafe. Better for my budget. Now that the weather is getting cooler, I want to make a large pot of soup every week. Nutritious and easy on the budget, its perfect for the season. Tonites soup is Roasted Chicken with Brown Rice. I did alot of the prep work on sunday so all I would have to do is throw it together today. On sunday, I roasted 2 whole chicken breasts with the bone. I placed sliced shallots and sage leaves under the skin. Sprinkled with salt and pepper, and laid the breasts on top of chopped onion, carrots and celery (mire poix). I baked the breasts for about 50 minutes at 350 degrees. Let cool and remove meat from bones. I also chopped my mire poix ( a mixture of onions, carrots and celery for sauces, soups and stocks ) on sunday and stored it in the refrigerator. I used 2 cups of diced carrots, 3 large parsnips, 3 leeks, 4 stalks of celery with the leaves (all medium diced). If no leeks are available use 3 onions instead. I also had about 2 cups of brown rice left over from monday nites dinner that I saved.
Roasted Chicken with Brown Rice Soup:

Ingredients:

2 whole chicken breasts with bone ( prepared as above )

mire poix ( prepared as above )

1/4 cup olive oil

2 cups cooked rice

2 bay leaves

1/2 cup chopped parsley

salt and pepper to taste

Sweat MirePoix in large stock pot with 4 tbs of olive or canola oil. Add 5 quarts of chicken broth or stock. Add the cooked brown rice ( or whichever rice you prefer ). Add the shredded cooked chicken, 2 bay leaves, salt and pepper to taste, and 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley. Cook for a few hours on low heat. Serve with Hot crusty bread or a side salad! I am serving mine with a small grilled chicken caesar salad with homemade croutons and shaved parmesan cheese. Yumm!!! and Remember: Life is full of Tasty Morsels!

PS sorry guys, for some reason the pics came out horrible. Flash wasnt working and pics are yellow and orange. Next time!

A Taste of Paris

I havent been blogging much since my surgery a few weeks ago. Seems that my healing has been slowed down by ripping out more sutures. Good news is its not as bad as the last surgery AND I am trying to get a handle on eating right to lose weight and manage my Diabetes. I have been cooking lately because I have just been so bored, even though I have difficulty using my left arm. Trying to make new and tasty dishes that fall into my healthy and low carb way of eating is really not that difficult. I try to plan out my weeks menu in advance, but sometimes its only the protein  I have planned. The sides and vegetables can be altered according to whats in the pantry. We always have brown rice, couscous, quinoa, pasta and potatoes so I am usually good to go. I decided last nite to take out some Mahi Mahi from the freezer. We buy it at BJ's or Costco and its fresh frozen. Yes I said Fresh Frozen. LOL That means its frozen as soon as its cleaned and cut. Its portion controlled and individually cryovaced. It really is almost good as fresh. Not knowing what I was going to make, and then changing my mind after looking in the pantry, I ended up making Baked Mahi with Herbes Poisson Bio ( organic fish herbs ) that mom bought in Paris a couple years ago. It contains fennel, organic celery, pink peppercorn and cardamom, giving the fish a slightly licorice flavor. I rubbed the fish with a little bit of olive oil and sprinkled the herb mixture on it. Placed on a peice of parchment paper on a sheet pan, I baked it at 350 degrees for about 15-18 min. depending on the thickness of the fish. I had earlier taken a few garden tomatoes and cut 1/4 inch slices placing them on a sheet pan. Sprinkled with olive oil and some black lava sea salt baked in a 350 degree oven for about 35 min. While the tomatoes were roasting in the oven, I cut some yukon gold potatoes into a large dice and boiled until cooked through. Approximately 20-25 min. THen I drained the potatoes,  then added 1 tbs butter, zest and juice of 1 lemon, salt, pepper, 1/2 cup of fresh chopped parsley and 1 clove of garlic minced and tossed lightly. I placed the bowl into the oven while the fish was cooking to keep hot. There were plenty of veggies in the freezer so I decided to steam some cauliflower. I served the Mahi on top of the roasted tomatoes to actually eat together. It was fabulous!! Yummy yummy. I figured out the calorie and carb value as best I could and we get approximately 350 calories and 40 carbs. That is not completely accurate, but for me for now its as good as it gets. I ate healthy and it was delicious! Remember : Life is full of tasty morsels!
PS- for some reason I am having difficulties posting pictures. HA!