Chicken Tortilla Soup

I made this soup in the crockpot, but I will post the alternative way to make it as well.

Ingredients:
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp olive oil (alternative cooking method only)
1/4 tsp ground cumin
2 (14.5 ounce) cans chicken broth
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 T lemon juice
1 cup chunky salsa
1 can black beans (drained and rinsed)

Toppings:
corn tortilla chip
shredded cheese

Directions:
1. Put all ingredients in a crock pot. You can even throw the chicken in frozen.  Cook on high for 3 hours.  Pull chicken out, shred it, and put in back in the crock pot.  Cook for 30 more minutes.
2. Put tortilla chips on the bottom of your bowl.  Pour soup over chips.  Garnish with shredded cheese.  Mix it all up together if you like.  (That's what I do!)

Alternative Method:
1. In a large pot over medium heat, cook and stir chicken (cubed) in the oil for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cumin and mix well. Then add the broth, corn, onion, chili powder, lemon juice, and salsa. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 to 30 minutes.
2. Same as above.

Nutrition (1/4 of pot with only 9.4 ounces chicken):
Calories: 230
Fat: 1 g
Carbs: 30.9 g
Fiber: 2.7 g
Sugars: 7.2 g
Protein: 21.4 g

The nutrition does not include the chips or cheese.  I didn't list sodium because it will depend on a lot of the ingredients.  Also, I only had one large chicken breast so that is why I only had 9.4 ounces chicken.  I would reccommend using two chicken breasts (closer to about a pound).

Pepperoni Bread

This is a really yummy pepperoni bread recipe.  We let our dough sit out the full 7 hours since we were out and about. YUM!

Ingredients:
1 (1 pound) frozen bread dough, (thawed)
1 egg, beaten
4 ounces turkey pepperoni
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup grated parmesean cheese (not the powder in a bottle)
italian seasoning (to taste)
garlic powder (to taste)

Directions:
1. Thaw bread dough and let rise according to package.
2. Roll bread dough into rectangle.  Mix garlic powder (to taste) with beaten egg in small bowl.  Brush dough with slightly more than 3/4 of the egg mixture.  Arrange pepperoni, mozzarella cheese, and parmesean cheese over the dough.  Sprinkle italian seasoning on (to taste).  Roll up dough like a jelly roll and pinch seam to seal; place seam side down on slightly greased baking sheet.
3. Brush remaining egg mixture onto outisde of roll.  Sprinkle additional italian seasoning onto outside of roll (to taste).
3. Bake at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes, or until golden.  Bake time will depend on how thin you roll out your dough.
4. Serve with pizza sauce for dipping.

Nutritional Information (1/4 roll):
Calories: 480
Total Fat: 15.7 g
Saturated Fat: 5.9 g
Cholesterol:108.2 mg
Sodium: 1419.5 mg
Carbs: 54.4 g
Sugars: 4.1 g
Protein: 25.8 g

Note: Some people have used a Pillsbury thin crust pizza or french loaf to make it quicker and probably less calories.  You just need to adjust your bake time accordingly.  However, Rhodes bread makes me think of eating mom's stromboli as a kid so I think it's worth it!

Whole Wheat Blueberry Pancakes

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
1 cup milk, plus more if necessary
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon artifical sweetner
1/2 cup blueberries

DIRECTIONS:

1. Sift together flour and baking powder, set aside. Beat together the egg, milk, salt and artifical sweetner in a bowl. Stir flour until moistened, add blueberries and stir.

2. Preheat griddle. Recipe calls for 1/4 cup on griddle but I use 1/2 cup just depends on the size you want your pancake to be.

Biscuits

Here is the recipe for the biscuits I used to make for chicken a la king or just to eat when I was at home for the summer after sophomore year at BYU.  I am still working on remembering the right temp and time so I may update this after another try.  I also have a suggestion for making them healthier, but I haven't actually made them the healthier way yet so I'm not sure if it will be good.  I made 12 biscuits, but we had already eaten 3 before I remembered a picture.

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup flour + 1/3 cup flour -1 Tbs flour (a little weird because you are supposed to use cake flour I think)
1 Tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 to 3/4 cup milk

Directions:
1. Combine flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in medium sized bowl. 
2. Work shortening into dry ingredients with you hands.
3. Add milk until dough sticks together into ball.  Dough should be somewhat wet/sticky.
4. Pinch off dough and drop onto stone.
5. Bake at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes.  (This is where I need to do some experimenting.  when I used to make them, I could just wait until the tops slightly browned and pulled them.  However, at 375 they weren't browning so they ended up being in 20 minutes but are a tad dry.  That is why I suggest closer to 15 minutes at 375.  A higher temp for a shorter amount of time may also be the key.)

Nutrition (1/12th using 1% milk):
Calories: 156
Total Fat: 8.8 g
Saturated Fat: 0.2 g
Sodium: 282.9 g
Total Carbs: 16.3 g
Sugars: 0.6 g
Protein: 2.4 g

Note: The yogurt substitute will cut the calories down to closer to 120-125 and basically cut the fat in half.  I haven't made them yet so I don't have the exact nutrition on it.

Fruit Pizza

Here is a fruit pizza recipe.  You can either make little pizzas on individual cookies like Meghan did in the picture, or you can make one large pizza on a pizza stone or in a 9x13 or 10x15 pan.

For the crust:
Use the full (Almond) Sugar Cookie recipe I posted earlier, minus the almond.  You can choose the traditional recipe or the yogurt substitution.  Meghan made about 30 cookies instead of 48 because she used mom's cookie scoop (also will be easier to top if a little bigger).  If you do a large pizza you may want to try to bake it at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.  I am not sure exactly how long it will take, but I assume as one large cookie it will take longer than the smaller so you may need the lower temp to avoid burning on the edges?

The filling:
4 oz cream cheese (softened)
4 oz cool whip
1/2 C. sugar
Mix and spread on cooled crust(s).

Add any fruit you want, cut up or whole and place on top.   Top with glaze:

1/4 C sugar
1 T. corn starch
3/8 cup OJ
1/8 cup lemon juce or pineapple juice
Bring to a boil, cool slightly, then pour over pizza.

Refrigerate pizza.

Here are some changes the Brad's sister Brittany made to make it healthier or for her flavor preference.

1) She uses whipped cream cheese (easier to work with)
2) She uses lite cool whip to reduce fat/calories (no change in taste)
3) She does 3/8 cup pineapple juice and 1/8 cup lemon juice or 1/8 cup orange juice (basically she adjusts the juices to the flavor she prefers).

I don't have nutrition facts as I have never made it and there are so many places it can be varied, so sorry but you'll have to do the work yourself! :)

(Almond) Butter Cream Frosting

Here is the recipe for Brad's butter cream frosting.  When we made this with the (almond) sugar cookies we added almond as well, but you can make it as white butter cream frosting just omit the almond.  I put the nutrition assuming 24 servings, but you would really have to weigh how much it makes and figure out how many grams you use vs how many grams in 1/24th if you want to get technical.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter softened, not melted
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract (optional)
1/8 cup milk (at most)

Directions:
Cream Butter. Beat in sugar and vanilla (and almond extract).  Add milk until desired consistency is reached.

Nutrition (assuming 24 servings):
Calories: 74
Total Fat: 3.6 g
Saturated Fat: 2.4 g
Sodium: 32 g
Total Carbs: 10 g
Sugars: 9.8 g
Protein: 0 g

(Almond) Sugar Cookies

Here is a yummy sugar cookie recipe that we have used.  We added almond as an optional addition since we love almond.

Ingredients (Makes 48 cookies):

2 3/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp almond extract (optional)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

Directions:
1. Combine flour, baking powder, and baking soda in small bowl and set aside.
2. Creamed butter and sugar.  Beat in egg and vanilla (and almond extract).
3. Gradually add in dry ingredients.
4. Roll dough into balls and drop onto ungreased cookie sheet.
5. Bake at 375 degrees for 8 minutes.  Allow to cool for 2 minutes on pan before moving to cooling rack.

When we made these we halved the recipe (except the egg, we just still used one egg) and made 24 cookies. You could chill the dough if you want, but you don't have to before you scoop it out. We also frosted them with the (almond) butter cream frosting I am posting after this.

Nutrition (per cookie):
Calories: 82
Total Fat: 3.9 g
Saturated Fat: 2.4 g
Sodium: 63.9 mg
Total Carbs: 11.1 g
Sugars: 6.2 g
Protein: 0.2 g

UPDATE: I found another version of the recipe that is a little healthier, but I haven't actually tried it yet.  When making the entire recipe (48 cookies) replace 1/2 cup of the butter with 1/4 cup nonfat plain yogurt.  All directions are the same.  This reduces the calories per cookie to about 70 or a little less (I haven't actually tried it, so I haven't put it in myfitness pal to find out).  Let me know if you try it!