Recipe: Chicken Bacon Wild Rice Soup

I love a good hearty, stick to your ribs kind of soup in the winter, and while spring is approaching it hasn’t quite made it to Alberta in the way I want yet. Those groundhogs here were bound and bent that we were getting another 6 weeks of winter.

Any time that I have rotisserie chicken or a roast chicken, I know I am going to have left overs and this is the perfect recipe to use those up! If I am craving this soup, I have also been known to grab the prepackaged chicken at the grocery store from the day before’s rotisserie chickens.

Ingredients

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• 3 cups of chicken broth (or 3 cans – I’m pretty sure it works out to be about the same amount, I don’t usually have canned chicken broth on hand, I use 3 cups of water and 3 heaping tablespoons of chicken bouillon).
• 2 cups water
• ½ cup uncooked wild rice  – I use the Uncle Ben’s Garlic and Olive Oil Wild Rice
• ½ cup finely chopped green onions
• ½ cup butter
• ¾ cup all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Rosemary
• 1/2 teaspoon Thyme
• Salt and Pepper to your desired amount.
• 2 cups half and half
• 1½ cup cubed or shredded cooked chicken or turkey
• 1/2 – 2/3 cup of bacon bits I use the Kirkland variety.

INSTRUCTIONS

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1. In a large saucepan, combine chicken broth and water. Add wild rice and onions. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer 30-45 minutes (until rice is cooked, there is going to be extra broth DO NOT GET RID OF IT! If you do you are tossing out your soup!
2. In a medium saucepan, melt butter, stir in flour, salt, seasoning, and pepper. Cook 1 minute, stirring constantly, until smooth and bubbly.
3. Gradually stir in half and half with the butter/flour mixture and cook until slightly thickened, stirring constantly.
4. Add this creamy mixture back into the saucepan with the rice/broth.
5. Add remaining ingredients (chicken, bacon). Heat on low, stirring every once in a while, for at least a half an hour. Do not boil. The mixture will look thin, but the longer you heat the soup, the more the flavors marry and the more it will thicken.

This soup is best served after gently heating for an extended period of time (even a few hours) or the next day! For added flavor try a bit more add a few more herbs for seasoning (put a bit of poultry seasoning in!) and/or  MORE bacon.

This soup freezes incredibly well and reheats fabulously! I usually have a container of this in the freezer for the nights I have no desire to cook anything!

This recipe is tweaked a bit from one found over at  Pinch of Yum, I just changed a couple of ingredients to better suit my taste ( and my desire to not have to cook and chop bacon)

Cheers!
Marissa

Book Review: Juniper – The girl who was born too soon

A micro-preemie fights for survival in this extraordinary and gorgeously told memoir by her parents, both award-winning journalists.

Juniper French was born four months early, at 23 weeks’ gestation. She weighed 1 pound, 4 ounces, and her twiggy body was the length of a Barbie doll. Her head was smaller than a tennis ball, her skin was nearly translucent, and through her chest you could see her flickering heart. Babies like Juniper, born at the edge of viability, trigger the question: Which is the greater act of love — to save her, or to let her go?

Kelley and Thomas French chose to fight for Juniper’s life, and this is their incredible tale. In one exquisite memoir, the authors explore the border between what is possible and what is right. They marvel at the science that conceived and sustained their daughter and the love that made the difference. They probe the bond between a mother and a baby, between a husband and a wife. They trace the journey of their family from its fragile beginning to the miraculous survival of their now thriving daughter.”

I heard about this book while reading a news article about J.K Rowling finding out that her books had helped a family with a micro-premie. I knew immediately that I needed to find out more about this book and I am so glad that I did!

Juniper: The girl who was born too soon captured me in an instant! I couldn’t hardly put it down and managed to binge read it in two nights.

I was so enthralled by this story, so caught up with what was happening that I felt my heartbreak with the family and soar with them. I felt like I knew the Frenches, that I had experienced this pain and triumph with them.

I am not a mother (yet), and I was awed by the extent that Kelley went to become a mother, how hard she fought from the beginning to the end. As a dog enthusiast and one that is training her dog there were things that I had never even contemplated that came up here, which I will now be much more careful of in the future.

I learned so much about micro-premies because this book set me on the trail of discovery and research.

I am beyond glad that I picked this up! Five Stars all around. It even had me reading passages of it to my husband, though I’m not sure he was exactly as entrenched in it as I was, he did pause his video game to listen!

Recipe: Salmon with Miso Glaze

I am always looking for a good salmon recipe, one that doesn’t over power the amazing flavour that salmon possesses but one that still leaves me wanting to make it again. The last few salmon recipes I’ve tried have all ended very poorly but I finally figured out the major difference between when my recipe turns out good and when it ends up filed under “G” in the bin under the sink. Fresh vs Frozen. I really didn’t think that I would find a difference between fresh and frozen salmon but lately the frozen stuff I’ve had has been über fishy and sometimes just down right gross. I had given up on salmon for a while there to be honest but the last 2 times we’ve had salmon I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Each time a recipe has turned out well it’s been with fresh fish (as fresh as you can get living in Alberta).

This evening for dinner I decided to try my hand at an Asian inspired salmon dish, enter a miso glaze and a hint of ginger. I loved everything about this salmon recipe. It was fast (under 30 minutes), the flavours exploded in your mouth but weren’t over powering to the subtle delicate flavour of the salmon, and it was easy.

The biggest challenge I faced with this recipe was finding the White Miso paste. I finally located it in one of the local Asian superstores that I had been contemplating going into but just hadn’t found a reason to go yet. I used to shop at the Asian grocery that was around the corner from my apartment in Ontario but for whatever reason I just haven’t gone to them here in Alberta yet.

Walking into it was almost like being back in Ontario, there are certain stores that always smell the same no matter where you are, Michael’s, The Bulk Barn, and Asian Grocery stores to name a few. If not finding miso paste was an issue in other stores the opposite was true here, they had so many varieties of miso I hardly knew which one to pick! For this recipe I don’t think that it really mattered much in terms of brand but it wanted white miso, not the red (which until this afternoon I didn’t know existed).

Recipe

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• 1 tablespoon white miso
• 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh minced ginger (I had a hunk frozen so I just grated some of that up)
• 8oz of center cut salmon, skinned

1. Heat your oven to 350*
2. Place a sheet of aluminum foil in an oven safe dish, spray lightly with a cooking oil.
3. Place the salmon, skinned side down in the pan.
4. In a small bowl whisk together the miso, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, and ginger until it is combined and smooth.
5. Generously brush the mixture over the salmon.
6. Place in the oven and bake for 10 minutes (or until the salmon is cooked through – this really depends on how thick your salmon is).
7. Take out of oven, brush again with miso mixture and return to the oven, broil for 2 minutes, making sure it doesn’t burn.
8. Serve immediately. You could garnish this with some fresh green onion or some toasted sesame seeds but I was too hungry and completely forgot about them.

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Cheers and Enjoy!

New Home Gym

January is upon us! It is 2017, and we are still missing hover boards and a million other things promised to us since this is the future! I’m not one to make New Year resolutions because lets face it, we never keep them.

We talked a lot about what we wanted to do with our spare room, it sat empty for over a year with nothing but random things that didn’t have a home hanging out in there, but this has all since changed. Part of our New Years didn’t include resolution, but promises to ourselves. We are going to try harder to love our bodies and to make it easier for our bodies to love us back. I’ve seen this saying around quite a bit lately and it has really stuck with me.

“Don’t hate yourself to death,  you need love yourself to health”

I have no idea who said it, or where I even saw it to be honest but it has really resonated with  me lately. It it so true, we spend so much time stuck on what we dislike about our bodies, my legs are too fat, my stomach is flabby and I’ve got bingo wings, but we never stop to think for a minute that it is kind of magical that we are able to go about our days and this body of ours supports us in everything that we do, and it tries it’s hardest to do everything we ask of it even if it has to break a little bit in the process.

So this year, we are loving ourselves to health. That means we are trying to cook cleaner, eat out less and we are trying to work out a bit more not to get lean or to lose weight (though I have to keep reminding myself it isn’t all about those numbers on the scale), we are trying to work out more so that we can help our bodies help us to do everything we want to do.

We bought a bowflex and it now has pride of place in our once spare room turned gym. We’ve painted and now I’ve just got to put up the curtain rods we are using to hang up our yoga mats. Excuse the TOTAL mess, I snapped these pictures as I walked by  on my way out to yoga. I still have to clean everything up and make sure that everything has its proper place. But I couldn’t wait to share this with you. Once I have absolutely everything ready and done I will get much better pictures I promise!

 

Black Bean Chocolate Muffins: Say What?!

I have discovered my new favourite muffin! Black Bean Chocolate Muffins…. I know. It is weird as hell.

First off let me say that I was very skeptical of these things from the moment I saw them after yoga a few weeks ago (the owner of the studio I go to is fabulous and is always bringing in snacks and treats). I wasn’t even going to try them because I hate beans but I caved because I thought it would be rude to not at least give them a shot.

You guys, these things are amazing!!! I could seriously sit down and eat and entire tray of them in one sitting. You would have no idea that the main ingredient was black beans.

First things first the ingredients:

• 1 can of black beans
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 3/4 cup sugar (or alternative)
• 1/2 cup coconut oil (melted)
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Next up, the really challenging part. Wait for it. Put everything into a blender and blend until smooth. I’ve never made blender muffins before but let me tell you they are the greatest fastest things in the world. I am now a giant fan of blender muffins.

You can either grease up a muffin tray or use muffin liners, I personally just spray the muffin tin with a good amount of vegetable oil spray from Costco. Then divvy up the batter into the tray, I have found that it makes 12 large muffins or approximately 36 mini muffins. I just got a new mini muffin tray from Michael’s (I love their 50% regular priced item coupons! Hello new bakeware!).

I go a little wild on my own and I toss a few mini chocolate chips on the top of these bad boys before they go into the oven because I love chocolate and always like to find ways of having more of it. Does it make them less healthy? Yeah probably, but you are eating a muffin not a carrot.

Preheat your oven to 350* and bake for 15-20 minutes if you are going by the recipe I got from the yoga studio, I find that they aren’t quite set after that long so I usually bake mine for half an hour.

Let cool for 10 minutes if you can wait that long,  5 minutes if you are like me and crave these right out of the oven.

Because there is no flour in them they do have a slightly different texture than regular flour based muffins, but it is moist and fluffy and I love it so much!

Since these have beans in them I like to keep mine in an air tight container in the fridge, I can’t tell you how long they last because all of mine are normally gone within 3-5 days. I just took these beauties to an impromptu dinner party and that’s how awesome they are! 30 minutes and I was out the door with them (in addition to banana bread and half cup cookies I had made earlier and which I might post at a later date)

Black beans are now a staple in my pantry and I can’t wait to try them out in other recipes. Black bean brownies here I come!

 

Recipe: Orange Creamsicle Smoothie

I adore smoothies. Let’s just get that out in the open right now. I would drink a smoothie for pretty much every meal if I could get away with it but unfortunately for me Sam much prefers solid food to smoothies for every meal.

I was craving a smoothie this afternoon but had no idea what kind to make. I scoured Pinterest but my biggest issue is that I can’t have raw bananas since I’m allergic to them. Most smoothies use bananas are their base, they are what make smoothies smooth. Sucks to be me really. So lately I haven’t had any smoothies, especially not for every meal.

Pinterest was full of delicious looking smoothies all complete with bananas, which wasn’t helping so I did what any one would do. I opened my fridge and stood in front of it. Then I closed my fridge and stood in front of it. I heaved a giant sigh and opened my fridge again. There was no magical inspiration like I thought there might be. I don’t know how many times I’ve done this but it never works. One day maybe though…. one day I will open the fridge and the food will sing to me the song of their people and I will know exactly what I’m making.

I fiddled around in the veggie drawer but wasn’t feeling a veggie smoothie at all, then I pondered the fruit. I had a sad orange that has been sitting in the drawer since before Christmas because I had every intention of making citrus chicken over the holidays…but that never happened.

I’ve never blended an orange so I decided to test my Ninja out and see what would happen.

People, great things happened when I put that orange in the blender. Great and magical things.

I had one large navel orange (peeled and separated into segments – I got lucky and there were no seeds in this one, had there been I would have taken those out), then I added 1 cup of vanilla greek yogurt, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and a pretty generous table-spoon of honey, add to that 2 cups of ice, blend. Pour into 2 glasses if you are sharing or if you are like me today you will drink the whole thing yourself and then tell your husband about the amazing smoothie you had, because everyone knows saving smoothies just doesn’t work.

Cheers my friends! 

Recipe

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• 1 large, peeled and deseeded navel orange broken into segments
• 1 cup vanilla greek yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 2 cups of ice

Toss everything into strong blender (Ninja,Vitamix – whatever you have just make sure it is powerful enough to blend an orange), blend till smooth and enjoy.

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Strawberry Peanut Butter and Nutella Quesadillas

Breakfast is a challenging meal for a lot of people, myself included. I don’t like having toast every day and I’m lactose intolerant so cereal and milk is a no go. I’m allergic to bananas too so a lot of those smoothies that are out there I can’t have even though I really really want them.

Enter the Strawberry Peanut Butter and Nutella Quesadilla. 

These are super fast to put together and they taste phenomenal.

Grab yourself some tortillas, I usually buy the white tortilla but it will work with any kind.

Spread peanut butter on one half and nutella on the other half, add sliced strawberries to one side and then fold it in half. Place in a skillet that is large enough for it to fit and heat until golden brown, pay attention to it though because they tend to burn quickly. Flip to the other side, heat until golden and then serve.

The combination of strawberries, peanut butter and nutella just hit the sweet spot for me, mmmmm mmmmm delicious! You could easily add sliced bananas to this if that’s your jam.

If you’ve tried this with other fruits let me know how they turned out! I’m a bit afraid to go to others because once you’ve found something that works why mess with it?

Book Review: The Dark Queen by Susan Carroll

I am not quite finished this book, in fact I am only about half way through it, but I thought that I would review it as it is now because I’m not entirely sure that I really want to read all the way to the end. This is what I get for listening to a Pinterest list about books “you must read if you liked ___________”.

This is about as close to a historical fiction as I am to a potato. I like my historical fictions like I like my wine, big and bold and with some hint of truth behind them. I realize that truth tends to get tossed out the window when you bring fiction into things, but if you are going to base your novel on History, there should be some solid fact checking done.

From Brittany’s misty shores to the decadent splendor of Paris’s royal court, one woman must fulfill her destiny while facing the treacherous designs of Catherine de Medici, the dark queen.

She is Ariane, the Lady of Faire Isle, one of the Cheney sisters, renowned for their mystical skills and for keeping the isle secure and prosperous. But this is a time when women of ability are deemed sorceresses, when Renaissance France is torn by ruthless political intrigues, and all are held in thrall to the sinister ambitions of Queen Catherine de Medici. Then a wounded stranger arrives on Faire Isle, bearing a secret the Dark Queen will do everything in her power to possess. The only person Ariane can turn to is the comte de Renard, a nobleman with fiery determination and a past as mysterious as his own unusual gifts.

This book gets points for being decently written and for the fact that I am not cringing at every line of dialogue, but loses some in the historical fiction zone because  I don’t feel like it is suited to this genre at all. Fantasy for sure! Romance? Yes. Historical Fiction…. nope. It isn’t the books fault that it is being touted as something it isn’t. Am I enjoying it? Some days, but other days I really don’t like it… I think it depends on how tired I am when I am reading it.

I think that some of the reviews for this book calling it wonderful and whatnot are exaggerating a bit, it isn’t wonderful but it also isn’t bad if you can get past the historical errors and the wonton magic that’s thrown in there for good measure. I didn’t find any “ruthless political intrigue” like I was promised and I definitely didn’t think that Queen Catherine de Medici was “sinister” in the slightest, more like a fat old kitty cat hissing and spitting when the new kitten ruined all her plans just like her mother before her. Cat’s aren’t sinister, they are just judgy and that’s how Catherine comes across here too.

All in all, if you want to waste some time, it’s a decent read, if you are looking for something like Tolkien or Rowling, this isn’t it.

Will I finish it? Maybe? I haven’t decided yet. Do I want to read the rest of the ‘saga’….not really, no. If I can’t find anything else to spark my fancy, I might pick them up if I’m bored, but with the number of books on my list, that probably isn’t going to happen.

Book Review: The Gracekeepers – Kristy Logan

North and her bear live on a circus boat, floating between the scattered archipelagoes that are all that remains of the land. To survive, the circus’s acrobats, fire-swallowers and pony-tricksters must perform forthe few fortunate islanders in return for food and supplies.

Callanish tends the watery graves along the equator as penance for a long-ago mistake. She craves forgiveness but instead must spend her days alone with the dying birds that mark people’s mourning for the dead.

A storm brings a change in both of their lives that they may not have been looking for, but that may bring them the peace and happiness they have silently yearned for. Will they have the courage to embrace the possibilities of a world where the old boundaries are dissolving?

This is one of the five books I picked up (technically 1 of 3 because I am still waiting on 2 others but I digress), I was pretty excited to read it purely from the cover art. It is beautiful! The softness of the colours, the water, the birds, what wasn’t to love? Turns out the story. That’s what’s not to love. It may be that in my illness addled mind I wasn’t able to quite grasp what was going on, but I just didn’t get it. Sure it was full of beautiful descriptions, but the story line was as choppy as the ocean world it was set in.

Susana over at Paperback Wonderland reviews this book much more in-depth than I ever could, but that’s because I gave in around 100 pages and said enough is enough, life is too short to waste it reading something you don’t like. To put it simply, for me the beautiful writing wasn’t enough to cover up the holes that riddled this story, had it been a boat in that world it would have sunk. Things just made absolutely no sense, why aren’t people eating fish? Where do they get their drinking water ? If half the population now lives at sea how come no one ever runs in to anybody else? All questions that Susana also has asked. I wish I had read her review first, I wouldn’t have wasted an hour reading this.

So I’ve moved on from it and will be starting The Dark Queen next which I am terribly excited about because it has the Medici’s in it which happens to correspond nicely with my new Netflix obsession Medici.

Happy Holidays!

Christmas is right around the corner, we can officially start singing the 12 Days of Christmas song. This year Sam and I are staying home, it will be the first time for both of us that we will not be seeing any of our family. We got our first christmas tree and it is lit up in the living room next to the electric fireplace which I feel has been running nearly non-stop. It has been ridiculously cold here, we’re talking close to minus 40 a lot of nights.

I’m over winter, I would love to tell you that I adore walking outside in the brisk air and seeing the snow and frost all over everything, but the truth is I only like it for about an hour, then I’m done with it for the year. Sure I like the photos I’ve been getting of Jasper romping around in the snow but I’m sure that I will get equally as good of photographs when it isn’t -30something. The photo above is what happens when we try to take a “nice” family picture…

I am super excited for our big gift

Sundogs have come out to play

this year which is tickets to see Cirque Du Soliel – Toruk  it looks so good! We really didn’t need a lot this year so we are going with experiences more so than things this year, though I did get some yoga gear to deck out my home studio which I am very excited for.

I’ve got 5 books on order from the library, but it seems to take a millenium to get anything delivered to the local library so stay tuned for some reviews on those! I’ve got The Dark Queen – Susan Carroll, The Happiness Project: or, why I spent a year trying to sing in the morning, clean my closets, fight right, read Aristotle, and generally have more fun – Gretchen Craft Rubin, The Gracekeepers – Kristy Logan, War Brides  – Lois Battle, and Juniper: The Girl Who Was Born Too Soon – Kelly French (though I might have to wait a bit for this one, it was just published this September and is very popular, I’m on a wait list for this one).

I’ve signed Jasper up for his next round of Puppy Classes but this time we are heading over to the Edmonton Humane Society for Puppy Power!

“Fun tricks, baby agility, and beginner scent work are just a few things that will be covered in this fun, and fast paced puppy class. It’s like taking your puppy to summer camp! Take your relationship to the next level, learn how to tire your puppy out, and have a great time doing it.”

This should be a lot of fun! I’ve also reached out to one of our local search and rescue teams to see what is required to become a search and rescue dog team after meeting two of their dogs and handlers at our grocery store on the weekend. I had to look into doing it, I felt like the Universe was beating me about the head trying to get me to take notice since this is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time but never really looked into it. In the span of one weekend I met with the two teams at the grocery store that I wasn’t going to stop at but did since it was close to Costco and I only needed two or three things, then that afternoon I found a book called What The Dog Knows which is all about “working” dogs from drug and explosive sniffing dogs to search and rescue dogs. Once I hear back from them I will let you all know what’s going on there!

I also did my first Suspension Yoga on Sunday morning and man oh man am I feeling it! Muscles I didn’t know I had! It was a crazy work out and there were a few times that I thought I might fall and break something but I didn’t and it was wonderful! I will be back to it this sunday too if the cold I have coming on either is gone by then or decides to not come all together.

And now for the random Jasper photos you’ve all been waiting for… that’s all anyone wants to see right now, pictures of Jasper. Well here you go. Merry Christmas!

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