Italian Chicken-Vegetable Soup (formerly named "Healing Soup")

I make a lot of soup for sick people. It's October 2022, and we are hopefully done with the serious Coronavirus variants that have swept America for the last 2 1/2 years. Most recently, I whipped up a batch of soup for my daughter and her family as they recently suffered through a week of Coronavirus Omicron 1. Yes, they lived. This soup has everything anybody needs to be healthy--especially if you make it with homemade bone broth. But if making homemade broth takes too much time for you, simply buy one 32 oz. box of stock and one 32 oz. box of bone broth at the grocery store. Some brands of bone broth can be overpowering--so diluting it with regular stock is a good failsafe.  Be sure to taste it before using!

Ingredients:

2 large onions, peeled and chopped

2-3 cloves peeled garlic, smashed and chopped

2 T olive oil

2-quarts good chicken broth (preferably homemade)

3 pieces celery, sliced

1 14.5 oz. can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained (optional)

1 15 oz. can chopped tomatoes, undrained (or 2 C chopped fresh tomatoes)

2 large peeled and sliced carrots (or 2 C sliced "baby" carrots)

2 x- large baking potatoes, peeled and diced (or 1 lb. white mini-potatoes- skins on)

2 medium-sized zucchinis, sliced (get one yellow and one green if possible)

1 small bunch spinach, thoroughly washed and chopped

1 Rotisserie Chicken's meat OR 3 large, cooked chicken breasts, torn in pieces

3 t Italian Seasoning

1/2 t black pepper

1 pinch curry

1 small Bay leaf

Salt to taste

Important Note: I use chicken or vegetable boullion packets or cubes instead of salt to taste--more flavor!

Homemade or store-bought Pesto (optional)

Directions:

In a large pot, combine all ingredients except the spinach, zucchini, and pesto. After bringing the pot to a boil, turn down heat and simmer for at least 45 minutes. Then, turn up the heat and add the spinach, and zucchini.  Boil for 15 minutes, then ladle into bowls.  Top with a teaspoon of pesto and serve. Makes 8-10 servings

Mary's Pork Loin with Garlic Sauce

Hey y'all, I am here in Round Rock, Texas, and I am getting fat! Why? Because there are so many good cooks around here! One of them is my second cousin, Mary, who made this incredible and delicious main dish for a party she had last Christmas. She is a very outgoing lady, and this is an expression of her love for people...

Ingredients: 

1 large pork loin--2-3 lbs. 

6 cloves minced garlic

1 large yellow onion, peeled and chopped

1/3 C vegetable or chicken stock

1 3/4 C heavy cream

3 C chopped spinach

1 t Italian seasoning

1 t red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper

1 C Parmesan Cheese (grated)

Directions:

Heat oil in a large skillet. Season meat with paprika, salt and pepper. Brown outside of loin by turning over in skillet until all sides of meat look cooked (don't worry, we will cook the inside later). Remove from pan and put to one side.

Melt 2 T butter in same skillet. Add garlic, onion, Italian seasoning and red pepper flakes. Sauté until fragrant over medium heat. Add stock, allow to reduce. Reduce heat to low, add cream and salt and pepper to taste. Add spinach and cheese and pour over meat in a large baking dish (or two smaller ones, after you cut the meat in half). Bake in a 350-degree oven until the meat is done, a long slowwwwww cooking time is best, probably about 45 minutes in the oven or 4-6 hours on High in a Crockpot. Mary served this with tiny (red?) steamed potatoes, but cauliflower rice or cous-cous is fine.

Note: The sauce will separate when it cooks with the meat. So, to avoid this, after the sauce is made and cooked, I pour half of it into the Crockpot or baking pan with the meat and reserve half in the saucepan I make it in. Then I add 3 Cups of Chicken broth to the sauce in the Crockpot or baking pan. That takes care of the needed moisture for cooking the meat. Finally, I add about 3/4 Cup of sour cream to the reserved sauce before I serve it alongside of the meat. It takes down the spiciness just a tad and gives the sauce more body. Delicioso!

 

Jeanne's Fabulous Shrimp

Ok, this isn't just good, this is the best shrimp dish I've ever had. I live in Texas now, and shrimp here is inexpensive compared to any other kind of seafood. My friend Jeanne found this recipe and monkied around with it a bit, and voila! Perfection! 

Ingredients:

2 lbs. peeled and de-veined, wild-caught, cooked shrimp (high-quality frozen shrimp is fine)   

1 T "Pretty Thai" brand seasoning salt--no substitutes (available at various markets and at Amazon.com) 

1 scallion, chopped fine

4-6 T plant-based butter (which doesn't burn as fast) or regular butter

10 oz. coconut milk (shake it up to incorporate the creamy top)

Fish sauce to taste (she uses "Thai Kitchen" brand)

Directions:

If you use frozen shrimp like I did, defrost it according to the directions on the bag. Then, spread out two layers of paper towels on a cookie tray and spread the shrimp evenly on top of the towels. Then, put two more layers of paper towels on top. Start at one end of the pan and roll the paper towels and shrimp like a jelly roll. Repeat this with fresh paper towels until the shrimp is dry. No water is the key!

Next, sauté shrimp in butter until one side is cooked--one or two minutes. No need to turn it, shrimp is easy to over-cook! Then, remove shrimp and set aside. Important note: if there is a lot of water in the pan after the shrimp is cooked, dump it out before proceeding! It wrecks everything! In the same pan, sauté chopped scallion in butter until soft.

Add coconut milk to scallions plus 1 T "Pretty Thai" seasoning salt and heat. Add fish sauce to taste (it's salty). At this point the mixture is supposed to reduce and thicken, however if you don't want to wait, mix 1 t cornstarch with about 4 T water and stir into the heated liquid. Finally, add shrimp and heat until warm and serve on a bed of basmati or jasmine rice or any other kind of rice. Wonderful!