Chicken Tortilla Soup

One of my favorite soups to throw together is Chicken Tortilla soup. It takes just a few simple ingredients that I usually have around the house and it's the perfect warm punch of flavor on a cool day.  I love finding ways to feed my family fresh, tasty food on a budget. It's one small way I can be a Godly wife, mother, and homemaker, fulfilling my Biblical roles while loving every bite!

Ingredients:

Soup

• 4-6 cups of Chicken Broth (I like to make mine at home and freeze it)
• 1-2 cups of chunky salsa (Our local grocery stores have a $1 section that has the perfect salsa for this. I've found the cheapest ones work best in this soup)
• 1 cup of corn (Frozen or canned)
• Precooked chicken (I love to use leftovers from a roasted whole chicken, or I'll bake it in the oven right before making the soup)
• Black Beans (optional)
• Leftover Rice (optional)

Garnish:

• Mexian Cheese
• Sour Cream
• Avacado
• Tortilla Chips or Corn Bread

Put all the soup ingredients together in a Stock pot and let it simmer for 15-20 minutes. Serve!

Fish and Chips!

Fish and Chips (or fish sticks and french fries) is one of my family's favorite meals. My kids eat it well. It's pretty healthy. And it's budget friendly. My recipe is a variation of Rachel Ray's found here.

Basic Ingredients

Ingredients: 

Fish

-3-4 pieces of tilapia cut into strips (we love the Market Pantry brand from Target) 

-1/2 c. flour

-1 egg, beaten

-salt and pepper

-4-6 pieces of whole wheat bread

-2 tbsp of olive oil

Dip

-1/3 c. mayonnaise

-1 tbsp. mustard (dijon or regular)

-1 tbsp lemon juice

-2 tbsp pickle relish

Fries

-We love Alexia Sweet Potato Fries

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. I start with regular whole wheat toast. Spread the slices out on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for 3-5 minutes. Blend the toasted bread in a food processor pulsing until you have bread crumbs. Spread the crumbs back on the same baking sheet. Pour olive oil over crumbs. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and stir to coat. Bake the bread crumbs for 2-3 minutes, until crispy. Keep a close eye on them. It doesn't take long before they'll start to burn!

2. Put your fries in the oven and set the timer for 12 minutes. I like to cook my fries on the bottom rack to help them get a little crispier.

3. Cut each piece of tilapia into 3 pieces. Coat each piece with flour. Then dip in beaten egg. Then dip in bread crumbs and place on a baking sheet sprayed with oil.

4. After your timer goes off for the fries, flip them over and put them back in the oven. Also place your fish in the oven. Cook for 12 minutes.

5. Mix the ingredients for the dip.

6. Pull everything out of the oven and give them a few minutes to cool before serving. Enjoy!! 

We enjoyed ours outside last week! 

Dipping Sauce

Even the kids eat this one up! I hope yours do too! 

Chicken Tacos with the Perry's

We love Mexican food in our house. My kids will eat most anything with that involves tortilla chips, salsa, and cheese, so we often resort to quesadillas, and tacos for dinner. This is one of my favorite go to's. The thing that makes it crazy easy to throw together is using leftover chicken. I'm a big fan of roasting a whole chicken in the oven (or crock pot). We then typically only eat half of the chicken in one dinner and I can save the rest of the meat for another meal. Sometimes I freeze it. Sometimes I just plan to use it in the next few days. I will also then use the bones to make chicken broth in the crock pot (it's FREE people, so why not?!). So without further adieu.....

Chicken Tacos with the Perry's

 Chicken Taco Ingredients

Ingredients
-leftover chicken (we use leftover chicken from a roasted whole chicken)
-Chili Powder
-Garlic Salt
-Cumin
-Oregano
-Tortillas of your choosing (we LOVE Stacy's Organic tortillas that we get from Mama Jean's locally)
-Toppings of your choice (we love cheese, salsa, a bit of lettuce, and avocado)
-Rice
-Parsley
-Butter
-Salt

Normally I start the rice first. My favorite lately is Jasmine. I use 1 heaping cup of rice for just over 1.5 c of water. Let it simmer till the water is gone (15ish minutes). Add about 2 Tbsp of butter and a sprinkling of salt and Parsley. Then let it sit till it's nice a fluffy (usually 10ish more minutes). This combo changed my life.

While the rice simmers put the chicken in your favorite skillet and generously sprinkle with garlic salt, chili powder, cumin, and oregano. I don't ever measure on this one. Just sprinkle till it tastes good. Add a few splashes of water to the pan. And sauté until the chicken is warm and water has evaporated.
Warm your tortillas in the oven or microwave and pile in your ingredients! Add some rice to your plate and enjoy! I know we do!

 Chicken Tacos

Musings

I admit it. My brain is in some kind of a summer mode right now. It. Does. Not. Want. To. Work. At anything... much less my disciplines of being in the Word. I spend my time in the Word at work right now. Is it ok to publish that on the world wide web? I have the luxury of a job that allows that I guess and it just works best for the wisest use of my time on most days. I tend to get my 'work' done quickly, but need to remain in my place of employment for the hours required of me and find that reading the word and good books at work is better than TV Watching on Hulu (which I also do way too much of). In fact I have two more days staring me in the face with, more than likely, plenty of free time to use wisely and I'm trying to figure out what would be the best use of my time and what I can bring with me to accomplish here... instead of staring at the new iPhone4 and lusting.

I had originally titled this post Chapter 4 Update and Catch Up. But I think I'll save that for tomorrow... or at least a post later today. Right now I just feel like sharing my heart. God has been really, really good to us lately. Chris has started this new job, for which we are immensely thankful for a variety of reasons. It also came to my attention (through Chris) that apparently there were SEVERAL applicants for his position. And they interviewed SEVERAL of those applicants. And in the end they chose Chris. Now, I know why. He's an amazing, talented guy. He'll be great in this type of position. I'm saying all that to brag on him. He was chosen from many interviewers because he's awesome:) And we're so thankful that God blessed us in this way. It hasn't been without it's challenges though. We still have just the one car and it's been fairly challenging getting him, our Little man, and myself all the places we need to go in a day. Like here in a few minutes I have to leave work to exchange the car with Chris, who is currently working at the location on north Glenstone and Kearney, all the way across town. Annoying, but necessary. And I think I'm annoying my bosses... which I hate. Hopefully it will come to an end though. And this process is a necessary evil. We have to have Chris' income to save for another car! So we'll get there in time. So I'm just praying that we can save quickly and find a good deal on a reliable vehicle that we don't hate. (I know I'm not going to LOVE whatever we get, but I just would like to not hate it!) All of this has its goods and bads... as do most things in life I guess. But in it all I'm SO very thankful for God's provision for us.

Next... lately I've become somewhat obsessed with organic eating. It started when I was pregnant with Landon. Like I said I have a fair amount of free time at my job and I spend much of it online. They recommend more than usual to eat as organically as possible while you're pregnant. That tiny baby can't handle all the chemicals like our bigger bodies can. So I started researching more and more and more and now here I am. I bought organic ketchup last night, mostly to get rid of the high fructose corn syrup that plagues most ketchups. Nonetheless though... I bought organic ketchup! I've also started buying organic apples because they fall in the 'Dirty Dozen.' I've been shopping at the Farmer's Market the last few weeks and I planted a garden! So far it's not really costing me any more than normal because I'm not buying a lot of processed stuff. I'm trying to eat whole, natural foods. Fruits and veggies, and products with the least amounts of ingredients possible. The next step for me I think is looking into different meat. I've been eyeing the grass fed beef and free range chicken (oh... I have been buying fresh eggs from a local farmer at a little nursery and garden store in Ozark and they are SO good! It reminds me of our fresh eggs when I was a kid... yes we kept chickens :) at the Farmer's Market and trying to figure out how to fit that into our budget. This year I want to save up so that next year I can join a local CSA... you pay for your meat up front and get a discount as your bring it home throughout the year. We'll see if I can talk my amazing hubby into that! So far Chris has been very supportive. I've had him read a FEW of the articles I've found and he's loving the fresh produce from the Farmer's Market. He says it's the best he's ever eaten. So he's all for it. Plus, we bought a grill a few weeks ago and we're just enjoying summer eating. If only I could get him to like tomatoes.... that will never happen though. Like I titlted this post... musings.

You've probably stopped reading by now so I'll stop rambling. In 24 minutes I get to leave to pick up my little man, Landon. I love my sweet little boy so much and can't wait to see him!