Chicken vegetable soup

Sadly my divine cuisine has been kind of... stunted since we joined weight watchers on January 23rd 2012. We are both eating healthier and feeling SO much better, but no fancy cream sauces or anything lately for us. I've been examining some of our favorite recipes and seeing if I could make them Weight Watchers friendly.

This is one of our favorite soup recipes and the conversion wasn't to hard. It started out as "El Torito Chicken Tortilla Soup". I would call it "El Torito Chicken Vegetable Soup" now :-) It's a bit spicy the way I did it. If you want it less spicy leave out the jalapeno. The Chipotle Chili in Adobo is important to give it a smoky flavor though so I would try to leave that in if you can. I used a tablespoon of it not a teaspoon! SPICY!!

El Torito Chicken Vegetable Soup

Makes 4 servings

Serving size: approximately 2 cups

WW Points Per Serving: 5

Ingredients:

9 1/2 oz Boneless, Skinless, Chicken Breast

6 cups O Organics brand Chicken Broth (I used it because it's 0 points, you can use what you would like)

1/2 Medium Red Onion, diced

1 Large Carrot, diced

1/2 Medium Red Potato, diced

1/4 cup Canned Tomato paste (I used Safeway's O Organics brand)

1 Bay Leaf

1 Tbsp Minced Garlic

1/2 tsp Canned Chipotle Pepper in Adobo Sauce, Pureed (I just chopped it with a knife until it turned to mush)

 1 Tbsp Fresh Jalapeno Pepper, minced

1/2 tsp Dried Mexican Oregano

1/4 tsp Ground Cumin

1/2 Medium Zucchini, diced

1/2 Medium Yellow Squash, diced  (I used Chayote Squash because I didn't like the look of the yellow)

1/2 Medium Red Bell Pepper, diced

1 Tbsp Lime Juice

1 Tbsp Sweet Sherry

1/2 Tbsp Cilantro, chopped

1/2 Tbsp Mint, chopped

Garnish:

1/2 Medium Avocado, sliced into 4 pieces

4 tsp Cilantro

Method:

1. Poach chicken breast in simmering chicken broth until done through, about 10 minutes.
2. Set aside until cool enough to handle and shred.
3. Combine chicken broth, chicken, red onion, carrots, potato, tomato paste, bay leaf, garlic, chipotle and jalapeno chilies, oregano, cumin and salt and pepper in large saucepan.
4. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes.
5. Correct seasoning, if necessary.
6. Add zucchini, squash, pepper, lime juice and Sherry.
7. Bring again to boil.
8. Reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes.
9. Add cilantro and mint.
10. Stir, then remove from heat.
11. Ladle soup into each bowl.
12. Garnish each bowl with avocado slice and a teaspoon of cilantro. Serve at once.

Seedlings

I'm having a little trouble with white mold, but the indoor seed sproutings are coming along:

Round one of the sproutings have been "potted up"

Mucho Nacho Jalapeno

Lemon Balm

(I hear it attracts bees so I'm going to try to plant it

between veggies it's also used in herbal teas.)

Cinnamon Basil.

I plant sweet basil every year I wanted something different

Martian Giant Tomato

Round 2 of sprouting

(this is where round 1 started out)

(Zucchini, Cantaloupe, 3 varieties

of tomato, and Thai basil)

New Variety of Zucchini is taking over already.

I heard Costata Romanesco was a tasty variety. Home Depot only has Black Beauty every year so I bought some seeds and I'm giving it a try.

The rescued Sweet 100 Cherry Tomato got so big I trained it to rest on the windowsill. I hope I don't regret that later.

Pre-Spring Garden Check

I went out to check on the garden this morning. Almost everyone seems to be very happy with our warmer weather. The veggies I've had under the hoop house all winter are taking off and so is the asparagus:

A few stalks of asparagus are popping up to say hi:

The Cabbage, Broccoli, and Cauliflower look pleased:

Collard Greens, Spinach, and a couple of other items:

Beets.. yeah.. I need to fertilize them or something I think:

Prostrate Rosemary in Bloom:

The artichokes that never noticed it was winter

(I hear they typically die back in the winter)

Our one and only lemon is starting to ripen!!

(hey it's an accomplishment the tree almost died)

Bobby, helping out.