Lemonchick's Turkey & Vegetable Soup

 Lemonchick's Turkey & Vegetable Soup

    Well, I had a little bit of an unplanned hiatus. I had planned to make fudge the week February 14th and then we had a major ice/snow storm (It snowed twice that week) which knocked out power for millions of Texans, all over the state. Some had no power for 5 days or more. Some like me, had multiple power outages, which in some cases lasted hours at a time and others for short periods.  My longest outage was about 18 hrs. Some had power on and off constantly the whole time and some never lost any power at all. I won't go into any more of that, but I will say the fact that we had the weather wasn't the issue, it was the power outages causing no heat in freezing temps. So, that is one of the reasons for the delay in another post. 

    Anyhow, back to the business at hand. When I went shopping the other day, I picked up a package of soup vegetables at a Fiesta grocery store, for just over $4.00. Most Hispanic grocery stores will have these packs of soup vegetables.  All you have to do is chop up the veggies, add them to broth, add seasonings and meat if you like. There was plenty of chopped vegetables and it would have been just fine without meat. The pack I got came with onion, a type of Mexican squash that I don't know, a small bit of corn, cilantro, carrot, a small red-skinned potato, cabbage and a piece of celery.  

    I prepped my veggies by washing them first and then chopping them into small pieces. You can chop them as small as you like. I put my carrot, potato and corn into the soup pot which I had poured two 32oz containers of chicken broth and 3 cups of water (I'd turned the pot on to start heating while I was chopping the vegetables) into. I added the cabbage, squash and celery, followed by two cubes of Knorr tomato bouillon with chicken flavor and about 5 cloves of garlic (finely diced). I added a little more than two cups of cooked, chopped turkey meat and 1/4 cup of quick cooking brown rice and boiled everything until my harder vegetables were soft. Honestly I didn't time it. Just cook until your vegetables are as tender as you like. I added chopped cilantro and 1/4 teaspoon and cooked it just a little bit longer, before serving myself a bowl with a sprinkle of sriracha sauce. The verdict? Yummmmmmmmmm.  And, now I have food for the whole week, because it was a huge pot of soup! 

Options: Use vegetable stock and leave out turkey for a vegetarian version.  Change it up and add different seasonings.  I did not use salt in mine, but you can salt to taste. Use beef broth and use chopped beef. Use chicken, instead of turkey. Sprinkle queso fresco or a bit of your favorite cheese on top when you serve. Make it your own!

Ingredients:

1 pack of soup vegetables (Mine had a wedge of a small cabbage, 1 small red-skinned potato, 1 small Mexican squash, 1 piece of celery, 1 piece of corn-on-the-cob, cilantro and about 4 or so good sized pieces of a giant carrot)

2 32oz containers of chicken broth

3 cups water (I used straight from the faucet, because I'm fancy)

5 cloves garlic (or to taste)

1/4 teaspoon pepper

2 tomato bouillon cubes with chicken flavor (or plain ol' chicken bouillon cubes)

1/4 cup quick cooking brown rice

Sriracha or your favorite hot sauce for extra flavor in your bowl

Lemonchick's Cheesy Turkey Rice Casserole

 Lemonchick's Cheesy Turkey Rice Casserole

    Wow! Yes, this is the third recipe I've posted this weekend.  This one is special, because it is my own creation. I created it using ingredients I had at home. Turkey is in the title, but you could substitute chicken or tofu/paneer cheese if you're vegetarian.  I am so excited by how this turned out.  Try it and let me know how you like it.  

2 cups cooked turkey (cut into chunks)

2 cups cooked brown rice

1 can diced tomatoes

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 packet dry onion soup mix

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1 cup shredded cheese 

Sour cream

    Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Cook your rice according to directions and set aside in a good-sized mixing bowl. Add the tomatoes (do not drain), cream of chicken soup, onion soup mix, and the Italian seasoning, stirring after each addition. Cut 2 cups of cooked turkey into chunks and stir into the rice mixture. Stir in half of the shredded cheese. Make sure all ingredients are thoroughly incorporated and spread into a 9x13 pan (spray with cooking spray or lightly oil) and sprinkle the remaining half cup of shredded cheese. Bake in your oven uncovered for 30 minutes. Remove and cool slightly (or as long as you can wait). Serve with a dollop of sour cream.  You could get at least 6 - 8 servings or maybe more, depending on how big everyone's appetites are.  

    Variations: Use chicken or if you are vegetarian, use tofu or paneer cheese cubed and cooked; white rice instead of brown, cream of celery soup instead of cream of chicken; if you're watching your sodium intake, try using low sodium version of the soups; try diced tomatoes withe chilis; chipotle seasoning instead of Italian seasoning. 

Tampa Tea

 Tampa Tea

    I didn't intentionally pick this drink to make (to enjoy with my fried cheese balls appetizer), but it just so happens that it is Super Bowl Weekend and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are playing in the game.  I am rooting for the Bucs, because the brother of a co-worker friend of mine is on the Bucs. In his first NFL season, he has the chance to play in a Super Bowl. 

    This recipe is in the 1958 Good Housekeeping's Book of Ice Creams & Cool Drinks cookbook. I will be making more recipes from this book, because "Hello! It has ice cream in the title!!!" This drink is super, super easy. It is just black tea, orange juice, sugar, lime juice and ice water. Your base is black tea, so you make that first, by boiling water and steeping two teabags for at least 3 minutes. Stir in a 1/2 cup of sugar to the hot tea, until the sugar is dissolved. I mixed my 2 1/2 cups of orange juice into my 4 cups of ice water and added the 1/2 cup of lime juice, then stirred in the tea. 

    This tea drink is good, but I would make it again with less sugar and would probably even try it without the extra 1/2 cup of sugar. I also would make a stronger tea base with maybe 4 teabags instead of 2 teabags. Do it to your taste though.  Use all the sugar. Add more or less tea.  The recipe calls for pouring 8 tall ice filled, glasses of this concoction and garnishing with fresh pineapple fingers or sprigs of mint.  

    One last suggestion is that I feel that this drink would make a good base for a mixed alcoholic drink. Try gin, vodka, tequila, bourbon or whiskey.  I have the first three and am not a big fan of the last two, so that's a no-go for me on the bourbon and whiskey. Make sure that if you have little ones in your household, you add liquor to only the glasses for adults.  

This is my oh, so helpful helper, Rooster.

Cheese Balls (Fried Appetizer)

 Cheese Balls 

    This fried Cheese balls recipe comes to us from a 1947 edition of The American Woman's Cook Book.  It's super easy to make.  I started by heating my oil to 375 degrees in a large pan like you'd use to cook noodles, soup or chili, etc. You could use an electric fryer as well and this may even work in an air fryer. That would be interesting to try and see how these turned out using an air fryer. 

    So, all you do is mix your shredded cheese, flour, salt and pepper, fold in 1 stiffly beaten egg white and tada! You are ready to shape balls and drop them into the fryer. I used my regular cookie scoop and it made the perfect sized balls.  Gently drop your cheese balls into the hot oil and cook until they are browned. Flip them at least once to ensure all sides are browned, before removing to drain on a paper towels. They cook very, quickly, so keep an eye on them. I cooked about 4 or 5 at a time and that worked fine for me. 

    I got 12 nice, sized cheese balls with my cookie scoop, which is exactly what the recipe says you'll get. I did have 1 extra ball, which was like the runt of my cheese balls. After I removed the balls to drain/dry on the paper towels which I'd laid in my favorite 13x9 pan, I sprinkled them with a little salt. When I finished frying the balls, I made sure to turn off the oil, because as handsome as some firefighters are, you don't want to have to call the fire department because of a kitchen mishap with your cooking oil. 

    Is there anything I would do different? Yes.  I would either use less salt in the recipe and/or not sprinkle salt on top of the finished balls, because they did taste too salty for me. That is the only thing I would really do different. I dipped some of my cheese balls in La Costena "Ranchera Salsa", which is made with tomatillos and mixed chili peppers. It is really good, and the cheese balls tasted amazing dipped in the salsa.  This recipe makes at least 12 balls, so if you're making them for several people, you'll want to double it. I'm excited about how you could change this up. Use different seasonings instead of salt and pepper. Do Italian seasonings and then dip your finished product in pizza/spaghetti sauce. Love garlic? Use garlic powder. Do you like jalapenos? You could add up to a tablespoon of fresh, finely chopped jalapenos or pickled jalapeno slices.  I'm just guessing, but I think the jalapenos would work as long as you don't add too much. And, how could I forget chipotle? I love chipotle and if you do also, you could put chipotle power in the cheese balls and I bet it would be amazing!!

    As always, if you try this, let me know what you think.