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cathubbard@hotmail.com
I love the Fall season for so many reasons. I love the beautiful colors of the changing leaves, I love the crisp mornings and I love that football season has arrived. However, by far my favorite part of this season is the food! Oh my gosh, the food! All the stick to your ribs, comforting, delectable dishes that are so inviting it feels like a warm hug. Well this dish is a doozy – Chicken Pot Pie Soup with Crust Crackers. Think Chicken Pot Pie in soup form with crusty pie crust pieces to dunk into this amazing soup.
The genius and inspiration for this soup comes from Chrissy Tiegen’s cookbook, Cravings. If you haven’t bought it, do it. Not only is every recipe amazing, she has some of the best, most creative intros to every recipe that you will ever find.
I did have to make some changes to appease the picky palettes in my house though. First off, I omitted the peas and pearl onions. I opted to sauté onions at the beginning of the dish along with the garlic to infuse the onion in the dish there. Although peas are traditional in all pot pie dishes I just didn’t feel like adding them in because I don’t like ’em so I didn’t. In the end I opted to use half & half instead of the heavy cream that is used in the original recipe. Oh…and I cheated. I didn’t make my own crust, I bought it. Some may call it lazy, I call it great time management, so there. If you have a great pie crust recipe go for it, if not I like the Trader Joe’s Pie Crust. The TJ’s version is awesome and will always pass for a homemade version that isn’t just good, but dynamite! One last thing, I like to make extra crust for extra dunking but if you are not a crust junkie like me than just use half of the recipe.
Stay tuned for many, many more soup recipes. Soups are a fave in my house. They make great leftovers, lunches and freeze well. What else could one ask for? Enjoy this one!
Chicken Pot Pie Soup with Crust Crackers (inspired by Chrissy Teigen’s recipe in her cookbook, Cravings)
Ingredients
6 c. chicken broth
2 c. whole milk
1 stick unsalted butter
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, finely minced
3/4 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. kosher salt
1 bouillon cube or 1 Top Ramen Chicken Flavor Seasoning Packet
1 1/2 t. fresh cracked black pepper, or to taste
1 large russet potato, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 1/2 c. diced carrots
1/4 pound deli ham, thinly sliced
3 c. rotisserie chicken meat, shredded
1/2 c. half and half
1 package Trader Joe’s Pie Crust, cooked according to package directions and broken into pieces
Directions
Turn your stovetop to low and add the milk and broth. Bring to a low simmer. Note do not bring this to a simmer over high heat, this will make the milk taste funky, hence your soup taste funky.
In a big soup pot, heat the butter over medium-high heat until foamy. Add the onion and sauce until soft, then add the garlic and stir constantly until toasty for about 1 minute (do not burn the garlic, if you do start over.) Add the flour, reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring for about 2-3 minutes. Whisk in the broth-milk mixture once cup at a time and then add the bouillon and salt & pepper, to taste. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and cook until thickened about 5 minutes.
Add the potato, carrots, ham and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes. Stir in the chicken and half & half for an additional 5 minutes. Season with salt & pepper to taste and serve with pieces of broken pie crust.
Living in the Northwest my entire life, I grew up shopping at Nordstrom and eating at the Nordstrom cafe. To this day, one of my favorite dishes to get is still the kids grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup. If you haven’t ever experienced Nordstrom’s creamy, slightly space tomato soup – you must try it. I have so many amazing memories being a little girl and cruising through the little girls department with my mom shopping for the latest in Guess Jeans and Esprit sweatshirts after devouring my luscious lunch.
In recent years I have come to love more than just the grilled cheese and have found their Lemon Ricotta cookies. Nordstrom came out with a cookbook called the Family Table Cookbook and once while waiting for my takeout order I picked up the book and noticed that the recipe for these delectable cookies were in there. I was sold! I purchased the cookbook and the rest was history! These cookies are so soft and delicious it is almost like having a cake in cookie form. As you can see from the pictures these are not crisp cookies. They are soft, creamy and luscious. See inside one…
Now I have to warn you – PLEASE read the directions for these cookies. The first time I planned on making these cookies I made sure I had all the ingredients but had no idea all the steps you had to take with the dough prior to actually putting them in the oven. Unfortunately these are not cookies that you can easily whip up in one afternoon – these take planning due to having to let the dough rest, then freeze, etc. On the plus side, these can be made in advance and you can bake them the day of and have a fresh treat that people will be in awe of.
I hope you try making these cookies. They are delicious minus the frosting – but if you are a frosting lover like me, frost them and you will find them OUTSTANDING!
Have you ever slaved over a meal only to have your family either not eat it or simply give you that indifferent look while they force it down? If you haven’t you’re lucky, however unfortunately I have had this scenario happen to me more than once. I can’t begin to explain my shock when I made this Super Simple Spaghetti Bolognese that my crew loved. In fact they claimed this was the best bolognese I have ever made. Uh, ok…noted, I will never slave over my more complex bolognese sauces in the future.
So let me explain how this Super Simple Spaghetti Bolognese recipe came to be. I became discombobulated and dizzy on Monday. I thought I was just experiencing a bad headache, however when I continued to feel like I was on a moving boat on Wednesday I decided to go to the doctor. I can’t tell you how relieved to find out I had vertigo. All I can say is I was sooooooo happy to be diagnosed with a medical condition and know that this was not all in my head.
Since I wasn’t able to get to the grocery store for some fresh ingredients (and because my family had not had a home cooked meal in days) I decided to throw together a spaghetti bolognese. Ingredients are simple pantry staples and there is no lengthy simmering of sauce and because I used 93% lean ground turkey the meal was low fat as well.
So here is my recipe for Super Simple, Fast, Budget Friendly Spaghetti Bolognese. I hope you enjoy!
I adore chocolate chip cookies, so when I saw the recipe for Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies with Cornstarch I knew I had to give them a try .
I have made countless batches always searching for the next best recipe. I am sure I will try other recipes on occasion, however this is hands down a new classic for me. I got this recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction website. Click here to see her recipe as well as her absolutely stunning pictures.
There are several differences in this recipe compared to others I have tried – the three being that you use melted butter instead of softened (which means NO mixer needed!!!!), one egg and a yolk as opposed to two eggs that most recipes call for and 1 1/2 tsp. of cornstarch. I was a bit skeptical at first, however these have come out heavenly again and again. The recipe calls for 1 cup of chocolate chips. I like to mix this up with part dark chocolate, part milk chocolate and part cacao nibs (to sneak in a little added health benefits.)
These cookies are chewy, soft and incredibly delicious. They remind me of a Mrs. Fields cookie, but without the $2 price tag. I hope you try these out and let me know what you think.
CHEWY CHOCOLATE CHUNK COOKIES (uses cornstarch) – adapted from Sally’s Baking Addiction
INGREDIENTS
2 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 and 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup light brown sugar, loosely packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg + 1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips, chocolate chunks, cacao nibs and/or some M&M’s
DIRECTIONS
Toss together the flour, baking soda, cornstarch and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.
In a medium size bowl, whisk the melted butter, brown sugar, and white sugar together until no brown sugar lumps remain. Whisk in the egg, then the egg yolk. Finally, whisk in the vanilla.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together with a large spoon or rubber spatula. The dough will be very soft. Fold in the chocolate chips. They may not stick to the dough because of the melted butter, but do your best to have them evenly dispersed among the dough. Cover the dough and chill for 2 hours, or up to 3 days. Chilling is mandatory.
Take the dough out of the refrigerator and allow to slightly soften at room temperature for 10 minutes.Preheat the oven to 325F degrees. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.Roll the dough into balls, about 1-2 tablespoons each. Bake the cookies for 11-12 minutes. The cookies will look very soft and underbaked. They will continue to bake on the cookie sheet. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.
I am obsessed with mascara primer. One of these magical tubes will make your eyelashes longer, more voluminous, keep your mascara from flaking and conditions your lashes. It’s magical I tell you! I have long used both the Lancome CILS BOOSTER XL – Enhancing Mascara Base – $25.50 and the Dior Show Maximizer 3D Triple Volume Plumping Lash Primer – 29.50, both I have equally loved. Although I have always found the cost offensive I just couldn’t give them up, until now. I have discovered a dupe that is worthy of replacing both the Lancome and Dior versions…