THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS #71 (5-Ingredient Meal) and Roasted Tomato-Tomatillos Soup

THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS Linky Party #71

(5-Ingredient Meals)

Roasted Tomato and Tomatillos Soup

Homemade tomato soup. This was a first for us and cooking with a tomatillo's was also a first. The jury is still out as to whether or not we like the taste of a tomatillo, but if you do then this soup is for you. One of my daughters absolutely loved it. She also liked the kick and spiciness of this recipe. So, give it a try we hope you like it too.

We are back from Minnesota with not one, but TWO First Place Titles for my girls dance team and their two teams took 2nd and 3rd in the National Grand Championships for their entire bracket of all Senior teams. It was a great weekend in Minnesota, they laughed, they played, they worked hard and they danced their hearts out. Plus a bonus was the wonderful time with their roomies.

Roasted Tomatoes and Tomatillos Soup

adapted by me, Tina Hudgens; idea found at The Terrace Housewife

36 Roma Tomatoes & 20 - 30 Tomatillos

Mrs. Dash & Fresh Pepper

2 cups chicken or turkey broth

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper (optional)

Cut tomatoes and tomatillos in half and lay on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with Mrs. Dash and fresh pepper. Roast in a 450 degree oven for an hour.  Once they have slightly cooled off throw all of them into the food processor and blend. Then add in broth, tomato paste, garlic powder and crushed red pepper (if you wish). Puree' until well blended. In a medium sauce pan or a dutch oven add all the ingredients and cook for at least one hour.

This week's theme is: 5-Ingredient Meals

Please only link recipes with our theme!

If you are a regular to THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS Linky party, then link-up we're excited to see what you made this week. If you are new, please just follow our simple rules, so that everyone can enjoy the linky party! If you forget to follow the theme, your post will be deleted. Please don't feel hurt, just come back and link up a recipe that follows the theme. Thanks a million, we look forward to blogging with you!

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This Week's Cravings Upcoming Linky "THEMES"

Here is a complete list of the past and what's coming up next on THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS!

March 12 - St. Patrick's Day - GREEN FOOD - Everything Green!

March 19 - Chocolate, Chocolate and More Chocolate

March 26 - Freezer Meals (fix and freeze for later)

April 2 - Easter Cookies & Treats

Your hostess for this party are: Tina from MOMS CRAZY COOKING, Angela from Big Bear's Wife, Nicole from The Daily Dish and Kristi from Veggie Converter. We host this theme linky party every Monday (and the party stays open all week long)! We hope to inspire you to make something with our theme or get an old post notice by linking it up to the linky party below. 

The LINKY PARTY is opened ALL Week!

PLEASE do not link more then 3 recipes per week.
This week's theme is: 5-Ingredient Meals  
Please only link recipes with our theme!

This week's theme is: 5-Ingredient Meals
Please only link recipes with our theme!

Easy Crock-Pot Potato Soup

My kids are still not fans of soup. I wish they were, because I love all the crock-pot recipes for soup. Throw it all in and when you get home it's DONE! Now that is the kind of cooking I love (sometimes). I made this easy crock-pot potato soup and they actually ate it. Happy Mama!

Easy Crock-Pot Potato Soup
adapted by me, original recipe found at Pearls, Handcuffs & Happy Hour

1 (30oz) bag of frozen hash browns (diced or shredded)

4-1/2 to 5 cups of fresh chicken broth or 3 (14oz) cans of chicken broth

1 can of cream of chicken soup

1/4 cup onion, chopped

1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper

1 pkg (8oz) cream cheese

(extra for toppings.. grated cheese, sour cream, bacon bits or green onions)

Combine everything EXCEPT for the cream cheese. Cook for 6-8 hours on low heat. About 1 hour before serving, add cream cheese and keep heated until thoroughly melted. Serve with cheese, sour cream, bacon bits, green onions, or whatever else you think would be good!

THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS #63 (SOUPS & CASSEROLES) and Tomato Zucchini Soup

THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS Linky Party

SOUPS & CASSEROLES

Zucchini Soup

We are still eating healthy and lovin' these new recipes that we are finding. I came across this recipe and thought wow, what an interesting way to cook tomato soup and I just so happen to have some zucchini waiting in my frig to be made into something. I don't know if you would exactly call this healthy because of the sausage, but we are trying to eat all meat, veggies and fruit with zero to no carbs. SO it does fall into our diet! I'll let you know tomorrow how the scale went this week! My first week of this 2012 Diet.

I am just in love with my new Pyrex Dishes! Look how cute these are! I made up this big batch of soup and put individual portions into these bowls with lids that can be reheated later. I put four of them into the refrigerator for my twins to enjoy a hot delicious lunch after school today! :-)

Tomato Zucchini Soup

adapted by me, found on Kristen Duke Photography

1 lb ground sausage (we use the Jimmy Dean roll)

3 to 5 fresh zucchini

1/2 onion, diced

1 tbsp minced garlic

3 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

8 oz. can tomoato soup

4 to 5 fresh tomatoes, diced 

1 tsp onion powder

Cook ground sausage, set aside. Cut up fresh zucchini into cubes. Cook zucchini, onion and garlic in oil and butter until soft. Throw in cooked sausage, tomato soup, diced tomoatoes and sprinkle of onion powder. Simmer until hot.  Serve Hot!

NOTE: The best part is that the left overs work great to use as pasta sauce ontop of your favorite noodles. I love making left-overs into a completely new meal that my family has no idea I even used the left overs in the first place.

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This Week's Cravings Upcoming Linky "THEMES"

Here is a complete list of the past and what's coming up next on THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS!

January 16 - CHEESE LOVER DAY... any cheese recipe

January 23 - Homemade Pies (National Pie Day)

January 30 - Recipe from Your Favorite Cookbook

February 6 - Nutella Day (Peanut Butter, Almond Butter & More)

If you are new here browse around some past weeks at THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS and you'll see why we are having so much fun and we invite you to link up too. Your hostess for this party are: Tina from MOMS CRAZY COOKING, Angela from Big Bear's Wife, Nicole from The Daily Dish and Kristi from Veggie Converter. We host this theme linky party every Monday (and the party stays open all week long)! We hope to inspire you to make something with our theme or get an old post notice by linking it up to the linky party below.

If you are a regular, link-up we're excited to see what you made this week. Just follow our simple rules, so that everyone can enjoy the linky party! If you forget to follow the theme, your post will be deleted. Please don't feel hurt, just come back and link up a recipe that follows the theme. Thanks a million, we look forward to blogging with you!

The LINKY PARTY is opened ALL Week!

PLEASE do not link more then 3 recipes per week.
This week's theme is: SOUPS & CASSEROLES
Please only link recipes with our theme!

This week's theme is: SOUPS & CASSEROLES
Please only link recipes with our theme!

Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup: CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE

CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE #5

Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup



Welcome to challenge #5 of the CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE. This month bloggers have been busy and relaxing from all the holiday festivities and even though we may have a few less players for the Chicken Noodle Soup Challenge, the ones who are here are AWESOME! I know myself and many others will be pinning away, bookmarking and commenting on all the WONDERFUL recipes! So, thank you for reading, thank you for participating and thank you for coming by to check out all the recipes!

I live in California and it's hard to make soup in the 84 degree temperatures we are having this week. BUT, I did it! And with a house full of sick people is was perfect timing (except my twins were so sick they didn't even eat it). I did though, and maybe just maybe from having all the fresh chicken noodle soup in me, I warded off the flu (so far!). I even got to share the soup with some of our out of town guests that came down with the flu. This recipe challenge was good-timing for my family. I now have a delicious soup in my freezer for any future needs. (yes, of course I froze some baggies of soup, and it will be  there when I need it!)

Wondering what the CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE is? Want to join the CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE? If so, we'd love to have you. Just click on the name above or the tab and fill out the form. You will then be sent an email with all the details. Only participants of the CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE will be able to have their recipes linked-up, so if you missed this month please come join us for next month when we will be searching for the ULTIMATE Chocolate Cake.

Let's get onto the soup! I have never made homemade Chicken Noodle Soup and boy are there alot of recipes out there. Creamy, Healthy, Fresh Noodles, Frozen and so many choices. I was kind of in a panic when I made my soup. I had kids sick (literally throwing up, not eating and I was trying to get some soup to them fast!) I knew the challenge was right around the corner and I had all the stuff to make the soup. I looked through my wonderful PINS!

(Have I told you how much I LOVE Pinterest, no, really

 I LOVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE PINTEREST!!! )

If you need an invite, just leave your email address in the comments and I will invite you to PIN along with us! It's such and AWESOME site, so much FUN and a time waster too, BUT I STILL LOVE IT!! Okay, enough said! Anyhow, I jumped right over, I knew I had pinned a few soup recipes and picked the most "good looking" soup I could find. The blog I found it on is called Let's Dish!

And I just have to share this amazing trick I found on Pinterest.... shredded chicken in about 2 seconds flat in my mixer. For years I have been shredding with a fork, burning my fingers and all. I had NO idea I could just throw all the cooked chicken in my blender for a few seconds and BAM shredded chicken! PERFECT, EVERYTIME!

Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup

recipe adapted by me , but found at Let's Dish

2 tbsp butter
2 cups chopped carrots
1 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup very finely diced onion
6 to 12 cups chicken broth (I used 12 cups... made alot)
6-8 boneless, skinless chicken tenderloins (or chicken breasts)
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 to 2 cups milk
1 pkg noodles (use your favorite kind)
Salt and pepper, to taste

Cook chicken breasts in a pot of water until chicken is cooked through. (You can use pre-cooked rotisserie chicken or left over chicken too). Shred and set aside. Cook noodles (al dente) according to package directions, drain & set aside.

Meanwhile, melt butter in a large sauce pan over medium-high heat. Add the chopped onion, celery and carrots and saute until the vegetables are just tender, about 5 minutes. Add chicken broth to vegetables in pot and bring to a simmer.  Add the milk to the pot and return to a boil. Gently stir the noodles into the broth, along with the shredded chicken. Cook for about 15 minutes. Stir in cream of chicken soup and simmer for about 5 to 10 more minutes.

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My recipe is #1 Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup!
VOTE FOR ME and CLICK on #1 in the Linky Party! 

Cream of Broccoli Soup (Dairy & Gluten Free)

My daughter, at her
happy place "Disneyland"

I am excited to share that I made my first official Dairy Free & Gluten Free recipe! And I am here to tell about it! Really, it wasn't that hard and it was actually very tasty. I was really surprised. My (17 year old) daughter is having some stomach issues and we are at the beginning stages of figuring all of this out. In the mean time, she is on a dairy-free and gluten-free diet! Yes, I have been blog hunting like crazy looking for gluten-free recipes. We had some broccoli left from last week's farmers market and of course she wanted Broccoli Cheese Soup, so in searching I found this great blog Living Free which had a recipe for Broccoli & Potato Cream Soup, the next best thing!

Cream of Broccoli Soup
original recipe from Living Free, adapted and changed to fit our needs

3 cups water, divided
2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
1 small head of fresh broccoli, diced
3 carrot sticks, diced
3 medium potato chopped into cubes (leave skins on)
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups Almond milk, divided
1/2 cup chicken broth (I couldn't find vegetable broth, so I am hoping the chicken was okay)4 tablespoons rice flour, divided
2 tablespoon corn starch
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Boil the onion, broccoli, carrots and potato in a large sauce pan with 2 cups of water for about about 15 minutes. Drain the water and place the veggies in a blender or food processor. In saucepan, add oil, 1 cup of Almond Milk, and 1/2 cup of chicken broth, whisk in the rice flour and corn starch and bring to a low boil. You’ll want to make sure you whisk this until there are no ‘chunks’ and its very smooth. Once it is well blended, add in 1 cup of water and bring to boil, again.

Meanwhile, microwave the additional 2 cups of Almond Milk for 3 minutes. Add the milk from the microwave to the pan and whisk well. Then add the vegetable puree (we left it a little chunky) and continue to simmer on the stove for about 35 minutes.

Soup will thicken as it continues to simmer, add a few seasonings of your choice (if desired) and its ready!

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Gluten-Free & Dairy-Free Disclaimer: I am in no way a doctor, nutritionist or otherwise knowledgeable about a Gluten-Free/Dairy-Free diet. I am just a mom stumbling and falling along the way trying to figure out what to serve my daughter. If I make a mistake I apologize. I try and read every label, but there may be times when I mess-up! I advise you to check ALL labels of the brands of products you are using to ensure that they are Dairy-Free and/or Gluten-Free.
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This post is also linked to: Show & Tell, Real Food Wednesday, Mouthwatering Monday and Meatless Mondays

THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS LINKY PARTY #13 (SOUP) and Hummus Mushroom & Potato Soup

THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS Linky Party #13

The Theme is: Soup

This is one of my first ever totally homemade soups. I've only made two or three other soup recipes, as I am not a huge fan of soup. Living in Southern California there are not many cold nights here and for me to eat soup is has to be really really cold (I think today it was atleast 75+ degrees outside, so NOT soup weather). This soup was of course delicious, and that's why I am blogging about it! It was like WOW DELICIOUS, it tasted so good and I am so glad I made it.

It was kinda of funny, never in a million years would I have cut out a recipe for soup, let-alone a soup called Mushroom-Hummus. I don't like Hummus and I hate mushrooms. My twins like mushrooms, which is one of the only reasons we have them in the house. But, while I was reading the Food Network Magazine I came across this recipe and I just knew we had Hummus (that no one liked) in the refrigerator and we had left-over mushrooms from my girls Mushroom Egg Salad recipe, we made a few days ago. And thus was born an idea to get rid of that left over stuff without going to the store and buying anything else. I almost came up short on the white wine (as I do not drink wine either, but I had one of those individual sparkling wines someone must of left in my refrigerator). The goal is to clean out our refrigerator and pantry to help with this challenge of being on a new-low grocery budget. This is just one of those GREAT steps to savings money, using ingredients you have on hand.

Hummus Mushroom & Potato Soup
recipe has many many changes for our need/taste and to use what we had on hand but was adapted from another recipe seen in Food Network magazine called Jay's Mushroom-Hummus Soup

2 tbsp olive oil
2-4 tbsp diced onions
1 cup of diced fresh mushrooms
kosher salt and pepper
2 tsp minced garlic
2 tbsp white white (we only had sparkling white wine and it worked perfect)
6 cups chicken broth (on hand I had chicken stock and chicken broth, so I mixed them)
4 to 6 potatoes (we peeled them, diced them, then microwaved them for 4 to 6 minutes before adding them in to the soup)
2 tsp Grandma's Salt (or any all-season salt)
3/4 cup hummus
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp parsley
scoop of sour cream

Heat the olive oil in a medium sauce pan over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until soft. Add the mushrooms and season with salt and pepper, cook for approx 10 minutes until they are nice and done but not burnt. Add the garlic and cook for a minute or two. Add the wine and cook for 2 minutes, scraping up any browned bits. (By this time your diced potatoes should be done in the microwave too) Add the diced potatoes, broth and season-salt; simmer for about 30 minutes.

Stir in the hummus into the soup. Then transfer 1/2 of the soup mixture into a blender and puree (remove cap to let steam escape), then return to the sauce pan and simmer for about 15 more minutes. Remove from heat, stir in the lemon juice and parsley. Ladle the soup into bowls and top with sour cream.

(Directions taken from the original recipe from Food Network... I have no idea why it's 3 minutes of this, 1 minute of this and so on and so on. But whatever it does, it made the soup turn out extra extra delicious!)

This post also linked to: Meatless Monday, Just Another Meatless Monday Tuesdays at the Table, Tasty Tuesday Delicious Dishes and Hearth and Soul Hop

Just read about the 5th annual Virtual Soup Swap over at A Southern Fairytale; I think I will drop off some cans today and can't wait to participate in 2012! Awesome Idea!!!

*****************************************************

This is a BLOG HOP PARTY so please hop
around and read other SOUP recipes!

Here is a complete list of the past weeks and a list of what's coming up on This Week's Cravings!

Everyone is invited, if you don’t have a blog, then please post your recipe HERE in the comments for others to see.

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Please only link recipes with this theme!
This week's theme is: Soup

This is your chance to share your FAVORITE SOUP RECIPE!

The SIMPLE Rules: (Click for complete list of guidelines for This Week's Cravings)

1. Please stick to the THEME and only link up recipes that go with our theme for the week. 

2. Add our button and/or a DIRECT link back to this post, inside of your post (not just on a wall of linky parties, this is rude and doesn't allow YOUR readers to come back to the linky party and see all the fun recipes! Which this is the intent of a linky party in the first place).

3. Also we'd love for you to hop around and visit the other link-ups! After all it's a BLOG PARTY and it's not fun for everyone linking up if you don't hop around and say Hello!!!


PLEASE follow the simple rules, so everyone can enjoy the linky party! If you forget to link back or add a button IN YOUR post you will receive a gentle reminder to add it, before we delete your post! THANKS A MILLION!

This Week's Cravings Past & Future Recipe Links

January 10 - Pizza - Pizza - Pizza

January 17 - Pies (Dessert or Dinner)

January 24 - Soup

January 31 - Potluck Item for Super Bowl Sunday

February 7 - Valentine's Cookie & Treats

February 14 - Potato and/or Sweet Potato Recipes

This is a BLOG HOP PARTY so please hop around

and read some GREAT recipes!