Chicken Stew (What to do with leftover roaster chicken)

Being that I'm on a diet and making adequate progress (by adequate, I mean that I lose about 2 pounds per week, put the two pounds back on over the weekend, and then lose them again the next week), I am constantly brainstorming on how to make my favorite comfort food dishes a bit healthier. I'm not one to swap out so many ingredients that he final product has zero in common with the original dish, so I usually only change a minor thing or two. For this meal, I substituted cream for flour and salt.

Those of you who still believe that the Atkins Diet is a great way to lose weight, shame on you. And those of you who are shaking your head and thinking thinking that flour has a lot of calories, well shut yo' filthy mouf because while it does contain calories, it does not contain fat. Blah blah, argue with me about how "dangerous" carbs are all you want, but I'll just tune you out and remind myself that my brain on carbs functions better than your clogged arteries on protein.

Anyway, so immediately after I finished consuming my portion of the roasted chicken that I previously posted about, I picked the thing apart and tossed the cooked muscle (not to gross you out, but that's essentially what you're eating when you ravenously consume any animal... it's muscle, but I digress...) into my crock pot. Can we take a moment of silence to truly reflect on how amazing slow cookers are? You can make almost any meal without adding extra fat and oil and you can throw a bunch of stuff together before work and come home to a fragrant house. What I love the best, however, is that when I come home, my dinner is already made, which eliminates my need to eat a granola bar and a yogurt to diminish my nagging hunger pangs before dinner. It's amazing and I think I may celebrate its inventor's birthday.

Like some of my other recipes, some of the measurements arent's exactly accurate, but I'll do my best.

Ingredients:

All the picked chicken from the carcass

6 cups chicken stock (you can either buy this or make your own by boiling bones)

6 carrots (I used the two that were leftover from dinner and chopped another 4), sliced to 1/4" thick

3 celery ribs, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, pressed

1 onion (I recycled the one from inside the chicken and just chopped it up)

4 potatoes, chopped

Peas (as you see fit)

Chicken drippings (I used all of them, but you could just as easily skip this step to reduce calorie count. Just be sure to season at the end.)

salt and pepper to taste

1/4- 1/3 cup flour mixed with equal parts cool water (this is a guesstimate... I have no idea how much I actually used)

Method:

1. Combine all ingredients aside from salt and pepper and flour in crock pot.

2. Cook for as long as you want (low, medium, high).

3. Just before serving, add the flour/water mixture. The purpose of this step is to thicken up the stew. Add more or less depending on how thick you like it.

4. Season with salt and pepper.

** If you want to go the extra mile, you could easily turn this into a pot pie by pouring it into a crust-lined pie plate and topping it with another crust. Proceed to brushing the top crust with egg wash and poking a few holes for venting. Seal the crust by pressing the edges down with a fork.

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Carrot Soup (You have 15 minutes, right?!)

History has never been my best subject, so the story I'm about to share may or may not be accurate. So during some war between the British and some other people, the very fawncy Englishmen heard that eating carrots would improve their eyesight. Therefore, in order to increase their odds of winning the war by being able to see their enemies, they gorged themselves with carrots. In fact, they ate so many that their skin turned orange! One summer day, my cousin and I, afraid of getting skin cancer, decided to test this theory and turn it into a rockin' tan. Our hue did not change, but I do believe we got sick because we each devoured about a pound of the orange stuff within a twelve hour period. Several years later, my mom got wind that I had been eating carrot soup for lunch and dinner for about a week straight and called to check up on me to make sure that my skin tone was not morphing into a certain color of the rainbow.

After realizing that the only part of my body that was affected by carrot soupapalooza was my weight (I lost eight pounds without trying). I decided to continue eating it for as long as I could stand. I have been making this recipe for a few years now, and it has yet to get old. It has the perfect blend of sweet and savory, and best of all, is loaded with vitamins. Also, it's a pretty awesome diet food because it's ridiculously low in calories but also extremely flavorful.

The measurements may not be totally exact due to the fact that I haven't actually measured anything other than the broth since 2009, but the instructions below should be more or less correct. Be daring and give my approximations a whirl. I mean- how bad can it be, right?

Ingredients:

1 pound-ish carrots, sliced into 1/2" thick chunks

6 cups chicken or vegetable stock

1 small onion, roughly chopped

1-2 cloves of garlic, pressed

pepper to taste

Method:

1. Locate the power cord, which should be connected to your crock pot. Insert into outlet.

2. Combine all ingredients.

3. Let cook on whatever setting you want. Need it in four hours? Done. Want to start this before work? Go ahead.

4. Once the cooking process has completed and the carrots are nice and soft, pour your soup (in batches) into a blender and puree the Hell out of it. Return each batch to large bowl or pot.

5. Combine all pureed batches and stir. If your soup is too thick for your liking, add water, and if so desired, a dash of salt. If it's too runny, oh well, better luck next time.

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Pesto and Cannelini Bean Soup

It's July and in the 90's on a daily basis, and for some reason, you've given up eating soup for the season. I'll bet you're the same person who still wears all black to a funeral and refuses to wear white after labor day. Am I right? I say it's time to break all the nonsense rules you've been foolishly living by, starting with the no-soup-in-the-summer one and whip up a quick batch of this soup. It's simple, delicious, and although it contains olive oil (dreaded fat!), it's of the monounsaturated variety and actually has health benefits when consumed in moderation.

Eww... the dreaded M-word. Let's talk about that for a second. Chocolate (chip cookies, brownies, cupcakes, frosting...), nuts, peanut butter... when it comes to thighs, apparently, there is a lot of truth in the phrase, "too much of a good thing".

The method for this recipe is not very detailed, but I expect that most of you have made soup before. It's kind of a "combine and eat" recipe, although I will warn you, don't add the beans until later, as indicated. When cooked beans boil, they break apart and lose their texture.

Ingredients:
5 cloves garlic
2 cans cannellini beans (I adore these versatile little suckers and always have a stock of them in the cabinets)
1 cup water
3 tbsp pesto (there IS a difference between good pesto and cheap pesto, but for this, Classico is just fine)
3 cups chicken or veggie stock (or you can be wicked cheap like me and use... gasp... bouillon cubes!)
1 cup chopped celery
1 red pepper, chopped
Grated Parmesan cheese (a crucial part of this recipe)

Method:
1. Combine water, stock, celery, red pepper, garlic, and pesto and bring to a boil.

2. Drain and rinse the cannelini beans. The best way to do this is to suck it up and dirty your colander.

3. When the celery has begun to soften a bit (you don't want this mushy, but you also don't want it to have a snap to it), turn the heat down to medium and add the beans. Allow to cook for a few more minutes.

4. Ladle into bowls and let cool for a few minutes. Sprinkle a tablespoon of Parmesan cheese in each bowl. If you don't allow the soup to cool for a bit, the cheese (even grated) will melt and end up as a hardened mass on the tip of your spoon... and you won't be able to taste it.

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