The Yummiest Vegetable Soup

Prep Time: 10 mins

Cook Time: 45 mins

Total Time: 55 mins

Yield: 6

Description

A soul-soothing bowl of delicious vegetable soup, perfect for lunch paired with crusty bread or mana's cornbread.

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 medium carrots, diced
• 3 stalks celery, diced
• 2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
• 2 tsp Italian seasoning
• 4 cups vegetable broth + 1 cup water
• 2-15oz can diced tomatoes
• 1 cup corn (I used thawed from frozen)
• 1-15oz can kidney beans, drained and rinsed (optional)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/4 cup parsley, chopped
• 1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice, more to taste
• 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt, more to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper

Optional: You can add cubes of sirloin beef

---

Instructions

1. Heat oil in a large stockpot or dutch oven over medium-low heat. Once hot, add onion, garlic and a teaspoon of kosher salt and cook about 8 minutes. Add carrots, celery, potatoes and cook for 5 more minutes, stirring often. Add Italian seasoning and cook for one more minute.
2. Add broth, water, tomatoes, corn, beans, bay leaf, and several grinds of pepper. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered until the vegetables are tender, about 35 minutes.
3. Remove from heat and stir in parsley and lemon juice. Remove bay leaf and season to taste with salt (don’t be shy, I added lots of salt!) and pepper. Serve hot with crusty bread.

Cheryl's Chicken 'n Dumplings

2 1/2 lb. chicken (I always buy one of the $5 already roasted chickens at Costco!

1/2 t. salt

1/2 t. pepper

2 cups plain flour

Broth from chicken

1/2 stick butter

1 whole chopped sweet onion (I use Vidalia or some other sweet yellow onion, but regular yellow onion is fine. I like onion so usually use a large one.)

Put the whole roasted chicken along with all the juice in in it, into a large heavy pot, cover with water, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for at least 1 hour or until the chicken and bones have released all of it's wonderful flavorful broth. (I learned from my friend Donald, who trains service dogs that if you cook the bones until they are very soft, you can grind them up in a blender or food processor and give them to your dog! Don't ever give a dog a brittle whole bone though as it is very dangerous for them.)

Pull all the soft chicken meat off the bones, discarding skin, and chop or tear up chicken to bite-size pieces and set aside. Try and not leave stray little bones in the broth that would be a choke hazard.

Saute the whole chopped onion and about 1 t. of minced garlic (I used minced garlic that comes in a jar), in a skillet in about 3-4 Tablespoons of real butter until soft. Don't burn!

Pour the sauteed onions into the broth water. If you want more broth, add water and add a big scoop of "Better Than Bouillon Roasted Chicken Base". This stuff is AMAZING!! and the base of just about anything I make that calls for chicken broth. Skip the expensive boxes and cans. Never ever use those nasty little cubes. Better Than Bouillon is available at just about any grocery store, but I get it in bigger jars for a much better price at Costco in the spice section. Keep it in your frig once opened. Use this in your chicken and dumplings just to further flavor the broth water. I don't measure anything - I taste - add - taste....you get the idea! At this point, since I'm a taster cook, I'll sample the broth and adjust the flavor to my likening, usually adding a little salt (careful not to overdo!), pepper to taste, and a generous shake of poultry seasoning - probably about 1 t., but again, just taste as you go. Also add about 1/2 stick real butter (you can adjust this too - less or more depending on your preference. You do need this extra fat though as it is what you are making the dumplings with.)

(UP TO THIS POINT, THIS IS GLUTEN FREE, SO IF YOU ADD RICE, FOR INSTANCE, YOU CAN JUST MAKE A GLUTEN-FREE CHICKEN & RICE SOUP.)

Now for the dumplins! These aren't the bread-y or mushy dumplings. These are the hearty, chewy dumplings that are the only real dumplings. No leavening like baking powder or egg. Forget that!

I also don't ever measure this because if I want a lot of dumplings (and who doesn't), I use more flour and broth, but here the the general dumpling recipe - adjust to your preference because it's so crazy easy!!

DUMPLINGS:
In a bowl, mix together 2 cups general purpose flour and 1/2 teaspoon salt.
Add chicken broth from your pan to the flour/salt mixture a 1/4 c. at a time until you have a ball of dough about like bread dough that you can roll out. A note about this: If you use very hot broth, it will immediately start cooking the flour and could get lumpy, so I also let the broth cool down a bit before using it to make the dumplings. Just dip some out of your big pot and set it aside for a bit.
If, after making this once, you decide you want more dumplings, just play with the proportions of flour and broth. That's essentially all the dumplings are made with so you really don't have to measure anything.

Dump this dough onto a floured surface and sprinkle with some more flour to reduce stickiness so you can handle it a bit. Form into a ball - kneading not necessary. Sprinkle with more flour as needed to control it from sticking the the surface or the rolling pin. Roll it out into a thin rectangle and use a pizza roller cutter to crisscross cut into squares that aren't too huge. I usually go for about 3/4" width by 1 1/2" length. Whatever...not a huge deal. Drop the dumplings into the broth which should be at a rolling boil. Drop only a few at a time until you have got them all in. Now - DON'T STIR AT ALL!! Put a lid on your pan, turn down the heat to a simmer - but still boiling, and cook for 45 minutes, covered. Do not lift the lid and stir!

After dumplings have cooked completely, dump back in the chopped up chicken and let it warm up in the broth for a couple of minutes. If you like vegetables in this, you can add them at this time as well. I have used peas and carrots from a can; I've used frozen mixed vegetables that I go ahead and cook in the microwave before adding; I've used just corn. Do what makes you happy but it's good without veges too. Add pepper to taste, or it can be added by individuals at the table.

If you like the soup part to be thicker (I do) I put about 1/2-3/4 c. of corn starch in a small jar and add some cold water and shake it to mix. I pour this straight into the chicken and dumplings as a last step and heat to thicken on low heat - maybe 5-8 minutes, but keep the heat low and stir. Adjust this for your thickness preference.

This is a lot of words, but trust me this is sooooo easy to make. These are just the basic instructions, but you can see this could be easily adjusted by just using more than one chicken, making more dumplings, more broth, veges or not, etc. You'll be making this without a recipe soon, like I've been doing for 30 years.

Enjoy! - - Cheryl

Cheryl's Totally Texas Award-Winning Chili

Ingredients:

• 3 pounds ground beef 80/20
• 1 pound ground pork
• 4 slices bacon
• 3-4 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 1 large yellow onion
• 3 cans Stewed Tomatoes
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground pepper
• Dried Oregano
• Ground Cumin
• Gebhardt's Chili Powder (has to be!)
• 1 fresh jalapeno, size of your thumb
• SECRET INGREDIENT: Pickled jalapenos, and juice from pickled jalapenos jar
• you want fatty beef.  Trust me.
• Masa Flour (~5-6 T.) To thicken at the end

Instructions:

Drizzle some olive oil in a dutch oven/wok pot and turn stove to medium heat.  Chop raw bacon (tip: use scissors!) into bite size pieces and cook, flipping until cripsy, and remove.

Add the ground beef, chopped onion, and garlic to pot, and season with heaping 1/2 tsp of kosher salt and pepper.  Stir it all together nicely (a chopping action with a wooden spoon is perfect).

Once the ground beef starts to brown, season with your first round of dried oregano, ground cumin, and Gebhardts chili powder – 1 heaping teaspoon of each.  (OR SEE DISCLAIMER NOTE BELOW).  Stir/chop nicely again.  You want the beef to have LOTS of flavor!

Once the beef is browned, I personally let it cook more in that fat from the bacon.  Feel free to drain the fat off if you prefer however.  (I think there’s some official proper cooking rule about not letting ground beef boil after browning… but I rebel!)

Crumble the cooked bacon and add back in.

Chop a few pickled jalapeos (to taste, I use about 5), and add to meat.  Then pour about 1/8 cup of the pickled jalapeno juice onto the meat and stir.  You want to hear the sizzle and scrape the bottom of the pot!

Season again with salt, pepper, dried oregano, ground cumin, and chili powder.  I do generous sprinkling two times around the pot, and my calculations say that’s about 1/2 tsp.  turn up the heat to high.

Add the cans of stewed tomatoes.  Stir and start to break up the tomato pieces.

Make slits in the jalapeno with a knife.  Submerge into the chili.

Season one more time with 1/2 teaspoon ish salt, pepper, dried oregano, ground cumin, and chili powder and stir.

As soon as the chili reaches a bubbling boil, turn down to low.

Let the chili simmer until it reached the consistency you want.  If you want it more soupy, it should be ready in about 30 minutes.  If you want it like a real cowboy, it could simmer for a good 2 hours.  Don’t forget to stir occasionally and always scrape the bottom of the pot!

Don’t forgot to taste once it’s cooled off from boiling.  Doctor as needed with the spices.  In my experience, it usually needs a tad more salt and oregano.  If you want more heat (chili powder has the after taste of heat), sprinkle more chili powder.

DISCLAIMER: I have never measured the spices.  I just sprinkle and go with it.  I conservatively calculated the amount I normally use for this recipe.  My recipe calls for 2 TBL chili powder (when I make a large pot of this I use 1/3 cup chili), and a little less of cumin and oregano to give you an idea, so if you want measure that out separately and then divy up that amount to season the 3 separate times I mention (ground beef, post ground pork, post stewed tomatoes). 

Remove the jalapeño and discard.  Dish up in bowls and garnish with shredded sharp cheddar cheese, sour cream, and crushed tortilla chips.