The Cook & The Coach Blog

Ham, Lentil and Pea Soup

11/15/2016

Cooler temps equal soup season! Although we are staying in warmer climates this winter we have still seen temps dip into the 40's at night and not get much past 60 during the day. I know, I know it could be so much worse. This year I guess it is all about perspective and it is cold to us!
We are also in a season of trying to save some money and our food budget is one area where we can save some money. Soups are a great way to stretch your dollar, get loads of nutrition, all without starving yourself.

Just in case you aren't convinced on soups yet, they are also super easy to make. This one could easily be a crockpot meal where you just throw everything in and forget about it. Also when we make soup, we always have leftovers, which means even easier, healthy meals for days.

Ingredients

3/4 pound ham, cubed
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, diced
3 large carrots, peeled and diced
4 stalks of celery, diced
2 tbsp minced garlic
1 cup dry lentils
1 cup dry split peas
1 tbsp dry thyme
2 bay leaves
8 cups water or chicken broth
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

You can cook this a number of ways. We used our pressure cooker but you could use a large pot on the stove top or a slow cooker. If you are using a slow cooker, just throw everything in for 8 hours on low and you should be good.
If you are using a pressure cooker or stove top start by adding your olive oil and sautee the onion, carrot, celery, and garlic for 6-8 minutes until everything begins to soften.
Add the remaining ingredients and cook as directed. Your lentils will likely be the thing that takes the longest, roughly 30 minutes on the stove top or 18 minutes in a pressure cooker.
Serve and enjoy!

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Chicken Tortilla Soup

10/10/2016

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I don't know why I don't always have a batch of this soup in our fridge. So good!!! Five years ago I would have laughed at you if you would tell me that soup can be an entire meal. I guess I was used to terrible canned soups or the tiny cup of soup that you get at restaurants. Oh how the times of changed.

Now my view of soup is basically it is liquid salad! Seriously though if you make a good soup it should resemble a salad. So if you don't like to eat salad, I suggest you try soup instead. This version of chicken tortilla soup is loaded up with veggies, quality protein, and of course some amazing chicken stock.

When I make soup I love to make a huge batch because it tastes better the next day! Feel free to scale this recipe up or down but it makes about 6 large bowls of soup. Also as a little bonus here is a how I like to make my chicken stock at home which is super simple.

Homemade Chicken Stock

Ingredients

5-6 pound whole chicken
1/2 pound chicken feet (optional but not really but this is where you get all that amazing gelatenous goodness!)
2 large carrots, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
4-5 garlic cloves, smashed
2 bay leaves
2 tsp dry thyme
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
Water

Directions

We use our pressure cooker if you don't have one you could do this in a stock pot or even in a slow cooker. It will just take longer.
Put your chicken and all your vegetables in your cooking vessel along with 2 cups of water. If you using a pressure cooker you will need to cook for approximately 45-60 minutes depending on how big your chicken is. Similar on a stove top and multiple hours in a slow cooker.
After the chicken is cooked, remove it from your pot. You can let it cool or if you are tough feel free to dig right in and start removing the meat from all the bones. Add the bones back into the pot that still has the vegetables in it.
Set your meat aside for later and discard the skin and gristle.
Add the remaining seasonings and ingredients and fill up your pot with water. We have a 6 quart stockpot and this amount of vegetables and spices works well with that amount of liquid.
Pressure cook for 2-3 hours depending on how much time you have. If you are using a stovetop or slow cooker you are looking at more like 24-48 hours.
After cooking, strain it so you are just left with the liquid, store in the fridge for up to a week.

Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe

Ingredients

1 lb of shredded cooked chicken meat
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion
1 green bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
0-3 jalepenos, seeds removed
2 tbsp of minced garlic
4 cups of pureed tomatoes
4 cups chicken stock
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp chili powder
2 tsp smoked paprika
Cayenne pepper to taste
Salt and pepper to taste

Garnishes/Toppings

Green Onion
Cilantro
Corn Tortilla Chips
Shredded Cheese
Sour Cream or Greek Yogurt
Hot sauce

Directions

In a large pot add the oil, then add the onion, peppers and garlic and cook over medium heat for 8 minutes or until softened.
Add tomatoes and stock to the pot along with spices and bring to a boil.
Reduce to a low, add the chicken and simmer for minimum of 15 minutes or up to an hour.
Your done, add with some of your favorite toppings and enjoy!

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Paleo Cream of Asparagus Soup

5/18/2016

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This dish was totally inspired by leftovers. To be honest a lot of the meals we make are throw together at the last minute. We try our best to just keep healthy ingredients in our fridge, freezer and pantry. Then I (Dan) find inspiration either from Pinterest, Google, a random cooking show or something I've made before to dictate what we eat. I'm not the most creative person when it comes to other things, but food, that's my jam - pun intended!

Seriously this soup was so easy to make and you could easily scale it up if you wanted to make it for a larger group. Like most soups the key to flavor is using a flavorful broth/stock and letting it simmer for a long time. I recently made up a batch of chicken stock in our pressure cooker. Homemade stock makes a huge difference in my opinion both in flavor and quality of ingredients. I probably need to write up a post about our stock recipe. Very simply we just add water, old chicken bones, carrot, celery, onion, garlic, bay leaf, thyme, apple cider vinegar, peppercorns and a little salt into our pressure cooker. We pressure cook it for about 3 hours and it turns out great!

We hope you enjoy this soup! We always love to hear if you try out our recipes, so if you give it a try, drop us a comment on the post or shoot us a message.

Ingredients

1 cup of asparagus, we used leftover grilled asparagus. You could use raw
1 can of coconut milk
2-3 cups of broth depending on how thick you like your soup, we used chicken but if you wanted it to be a vegan dish you could use veggie broth
1 tbsp onion powder, or you could use 1 small onion diced - we were out
2 tsp garlic garlic powder, you could use 2-3 cloves of garlic, I was on a powder kick since I didn't have onion
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp of olive oil

Directions

If you are using whole onion and garlic, saute that first in a saucepan with a little olive oil for a few minutes to soften.
If you are powdered onion and garlic, add everything to a saucepan and simmer for 30 minutes.
Add all the ingredients to a blender, be careful if you have a blender that isn't vented that you remove the top circle piece and cover with a towel. The steam needs to come out somewhere otherwise you have a huge mess and potential burns.
Return the blended soup to the saucepan and simmer as long as you would like. We simmered for about 22 minutes. I know that because I did my 22 Minute Hard Corps workout.
At this point season if needed. We needed a little more salt and I added some more broth because it had reduced a little too much.
Drizzle with a little olive oil and enjoy!

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Pressure Cooker Maple Chicken

5/12/2016

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Our pressure/multi cooker has been a lifesaver while we've been on the road. For convenience I wish I could just say we have an Instant Pot because 90% of the people that own a pressure cooker own an Instant Pot. We just happened to find an incredible deal on a different model, a Fagor. Doesn't exactly have the same ring as Instant Pot, does it. Either way, like I said this piece of equipment has been fantastic for us to make quick one pot meals. If you are an Instant Pot user hopefully it has similar settings and you can translate my Fagor talk to your machine.

If you are all about fast, tasty meals that are easy to clean up I highly recommend you look into getting one of these. With RV living this is perfect, because it means less dishes and dinners that can be made last minute after a day of exploring or swimming in the pool. Win for everyone!

Seriously this recipe maybe takes 20 minutes of active cooking time and 27 minutes of downtime letting the pressure cooker do its job. If you really want to kick up the flavor of this dish, add some chopped bacon, 3-4 pieces worth right away with your chicken. We had bacon for breakfast the day we made this so opted to not have anymore that day.

So easy and so good! Go make it and lets us know what you think.

Ingredients

4 chicken thighs, bone in and skin on
1 medium onion, diced
2 medium carrots, diced
3 garlic cloves, diced
2 cups of brown rice
2 1/2 cups of chicken broth
1 tsp of dried thyme
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 1/2 cups of frozen peas
2 cups of steamed broccoli

Directions

Turn your multi-cooker on to saute and place your chicken thighs in, skin side down. You may need to lower the temp periodically to simmer. The idea is to render out the fat from the chicken skin without burning it. Cook like this for 8 minutes, flip once and cook for another 4 minutes. Remove chicken from the pot leaving the fat behind.
If you aren't on saute setting crank it up and add your onion, carrot and garlic. Cook for 4-5 minutes.
Add remaining ingredients and the chicken, leave the peas out until the end. Put the lid on and cook according to whatever your book says you should do for rice. For me it is the brown rice setting for 27 minutes.
When your timer goes off, release your steam, add your peas and stir those in until they are warmed through.
Add your steamed broccoli for some extra nutrients and you are DONE!!

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Ham, Lentil and Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Homemade Chicken Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Paleo Cream of Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Pressure Cooker Maple Chicken

Ingredients

Directions