Saturday, December 31, 2016

Mom's 7 Layer Dip

Bottom layer: 1 can of refried beans and 1 can Frito Bean dip mixed together
Middle layer: Guacamole
Top layer: 16 oz sour cream mixed with 1 package taco seasoning, plus half a cup of mayo

Toppings: Cheese, green onions, olives, tomatoes, etc

Celeste's Taco Salad

2 heads of Romain Lettuce
1 pound of browned ground beef with taco seasoning
Tortilla chips
Olives
1 Cucumber diced
Tomato
1/2 green pepper

1 1/2 cup Ranch Dressing
1/2 cup Miracle Whip
1 package Taco Seasoning

Chop and wash lettuce
Brown beef with taco seasoning and add to salad
Crush Tortilla chips into salad
Dice olives into salad
Add cucumber, diced tomato, and diced green pepper.

For the dressing, mix the ranch, miracle whip, and taco seasoning all together.  Pour some over salada and mix until coated. You may have extra dressing left over.

Friday, December 30, 2016

Chicken Tomatillo Soup

Tomatillo Chicken Chili

OK, after that last post going on and on about healthy food not being so hard and receiving lots of requests for recipes, here's a favorite very easy and very healthy recipe. It's one of our family's very favorite meals and we have it at least every other week. It's especially nice in the winter. Just spend 5 minutes putting everything in the crockpot after getting the kids off to school in the morning and then, just before dinner time, take another 5 minutes to shred the chicken and add the corn.


Tomatillo Chicken Chili

Put everything below into your crock pot, mix together and cook on high for about 6 hours:

  • 2-3 cups dry navy or small white beans (about one small bag if you buy them bagged - you don't have to pre-soak or pre-cook them - just put them in hard and uncooked and they'll be fine; use more beans if you like more beans, less if you like less; use a little Bean-o or something like that if you want to reduce the gas that can be involved. You can use called beans - two 14-oz cans if you want instead of dry beans. If you're using canned, pre-cooked beans, add them at the end with the corn or they'll get really mushy)
  • 1 16 oz. jar of tomatillo salsa (I usually use La Victoria Thick and Chunky Salsa Verde since that's been easy for me to find - used to use Trader Joe's green salsa - most any kind works well - medium heat doesn't give much of a kick once it's with all the other ingredients; if you want to spend a bit more time you can use fresh tomatillos, onions and jalepeno peppers but it's a lot easier and about the same price to get the salsa)
  • 4-5 cups water (depends on how much beans you use - need 2 cups water per 1 cup dry beans - skip the water if you're using canned, pre-cooked beans)
  • 4 cups chicken broth or vegetable stock (can use canned or make it with "Better than Bouillon)
  • 2 tsp ground cumin (or chili powder if you don't have any cumin on hand)
  • 1/2 - 1 tsp garlic powder (based on how much you like garlic)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2-3 large frozen chicken breasts (I usually just use 2 breasts - I like a little less chicken and a little more beans)

After 6-8 hours, use two forks to shred the chicken. It should mostly fall apart. Then, shortly before serving, add:
2 cups of frozen corn (warm in microwave first so it doesn't make the soup cold). You can use canned corn but the frozen is a little tastier.

Serve with a little chopped cilantro and a dollop of lite sour cream or plain yogurt as a garnish.

Makes about 10 one-cup servings.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Slush

4 C Water
6 C Sugar

Boil and let cool

5 Mashed Bananas
1 Qt Pineapple Juice
1 Can Frozen Lemonade
1 Can Frozen Orange Juice
1 8 oz Package Frozen Raspberries

Mix all together and freeze. 
Serve with 2-3 liters of 7 Up/Sprite

So.. the water takes a few hours to cool, so I sometimes do it the night before and then mix everything up the next day. Then I put in the freezer for at least 24 hours, but 2 days is even better.