Hemp Seed Chicken Salad Recipe

How Tracy does chicken salad.

Yum!

Tracy's Hemp Seed Chicken Salad
2 cans chicken in broth, drained
1/2 onion (I prefer red, but only had sweet) chopped
1 stalk celery finely chopped
15 grapes, halved (If I don't have grapes, I use apples)
2 tbsp hemp seeds (hemp hearts)
4 tbsp Hellman's Olive Oil mayo
Pink salt & pepper to taste

Here's the fun part. 

Drain the chicken, then place in large dish (with room for mixing).  Shred the chicken with a fork.  Add the onion, celery, grapes, hemp seeds, and mayo.

Mix well.

Yum!  Makes like 6 servings.

We enjoyed ours with fresh veggies today and a pita.

Enjoy!

What's your chicken salad recipe?

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Homemade Ketchup Recipe

Okay, we hardly ever eat ketchup so I've not really stressed about the ingredients of what I'm buying, but we've been exercising 30 minutes a day and watching our carbs and sugar.  The result... 2 lb weight gain.  Thanks!

So I am looking at everything!  Sugar is in almost everything and sugar is evil.  I think I've mentioned before that I don't have a huge sweet tooth, so cutting sweets is not a big deal for me, but finding out it's in almost everything I buy, just sucks.

So I'm trying to cut it out in places I know where it is.  Ketchup is one of those places.  I've searched pinterest and this recipe is very common out there.  I've made my own tweaks but that's how I "own it'  You need to do the same!  "Own it!".

Homemade Ketchup
Ingredients
2 6oz cans of tomato paste
1/4 cup honey (use your local honey)
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 packet stevia (optional - I might leave it out of the next batch)
1/2 cup of water
Pink salt, garlic powder, onion powder, and pepper to taste.  Start with a 1/4 tsp of each.  You will need to add more to "own it!".
Additional Tracy "own it" ingredient was white wine.  Yum!  - We usually have chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon on hand which make great cooking add in!

Put all of the ingredients in a saucepan and simmer for 2 hours.  Taste and add more seasoning.  Mine was way too sweet when I tasted it but adding a few more shakes of the garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper made it pretty awesome!

Use a funnel and slowly pour your ketchup in a container (preferably glass) and store in the fridge.

I had saved our last ketchup bottle to store my homemade ketchup.

I'll be on the lookout for a glass bottle or 2 for the next batch of ketchup.  I must note that the brand on the bottle that you see, is the the best store bought ketchup we have ever had!

Enjoy!

Easy Roasted Grape Tomatoes

I never thought of roasting tomatoes and adding them to a meal or even making them the main attraction of a dish.  But I had a pint that got dried out a tad from being forgotten a few days.  They were fine, they were just slightly wrinkly in places.  So I decided I'd roast them and add them to pasta with pesto for an easy supper.

The hardest part of roasting the tomatoes is halving them.  And that's not even hard.  It's just tedious cuz, you know... short attention span Tracy was handling it.  ha ha.

These were lightly seasoned but the roasting infused the seasons and really brought out the sweetness of the tomatoes.  Wow, were they delicious!

In case you are like me, and didn't really know what to add to your tomatoes or how long and what temperature to bake your tomatoes, this recipe is for YOU!  I even measured this time and if you've read any of my recipes, you know this is like miraculous. 

Easy Roasted Grape Tomatoes

Ingredients:
1 Pint Grape Tomatoes halved
1 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/4 tsp salt (I use pink Himalayan)
1/4 tsp pepper
4 cloves minced garlic ( I buy the jars of minced garlic and use the equivalent - this is a great short cut for any busy cook that's also wanting to visit with the family and have a bit of time for their side business)

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Add your halved tomatoes to a small mixing bowl.

Add the EVOO, salt & pepper, and garlic.

Gently fold the ingredients to keep the tomatoes intact.

Place the tomatoes on the parchment paper lined cookie sheet.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Now add them to tonight's supper!  I added them to freshly cooked pasta, pesto, and some pre-cooked grilled chicken pieces.  Easy peasy yummy in the tummy supper!

Enjoy!

Your turn!  What do you plan to add your tomatoes to?

Healing Chicken Noodle Soup

Okay... I'm on day 6 of the flu.  I'm still running a fever.  It's the worst week to miss work.  Yay me! But amidst dozing, changing "Sliders" episodes on Netflix, and putting my robe on and off (hot, cold, hot, cold) I've been inspired to blog some.

I was at work the day I started getting sick and since I made this on day 2 of feeling like poo (hey, that rhymes), I didn't put my all into this.  I made it the best I could in hopes of the garlic, onion, and broth would do their thing and make us feel better.

The problem is that after I made this soup, honey and I were too sick to really eat.  We never could get much of this in us.  Maybe a half a cup at a time and honey sometimes passed on it completely.  He's only started eating more the past 2 days.  So although, this should be a healing recipe, it didn't really help us this time because we hardly ate any of it.

Here's the quick homemade recipe with a picture of the final product.  It was my lunch today, but I could only eat about 1/4 of.  But Baby dog got to enjoy a little taste.

I have to admit, this could have looked better too if I hadn't felt so bad.  I got feeling weak part way through shredding the chicken, so it's half chunked, half shredded.  ha ha... also I couldn't stand slicing the onions so I stopped at 2.  I put noodles in it because honey likes the noodles.  I wish now, that I had not even added noodles since he hardly ate any.  I completely forgot celery, but I don't really like cooked celery anyway.  If you forget it, I think they make celery seasoning if you have that.

Healing Chicken Noodle Soup
Ingredients:
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 cartons low sodium chicken broth (reserve 3/4 of 2nd Carton)
1 package of carrots (I used Bolthouse organic carrot chips) 12 oz.
2 celery bits or seasoning for flavor
1 tbsp of Better than Bullion
Pink Himalayan Salt to taste
pepper to taste
2 large sweet onions or 3 medium
fresh garlic (as much as you can stand)
olive oil
noodles of choice (optional)



Put the chicken breasts in your stock pot and cover with filtered water.  Bring to a boil and reduce heat and cover for about 30 minutes to cook the chicken and create a broth base.

While the chicken cooks, gather the rest of your ingredients, slice your onions as you please and peel and chop about 8 garlic cloves.

Go ahead and throw 4 whole cloves in the pot while the chicken simmers.  Chop the other cloves and put in a small fry pan with olive oil and brown it over medium low heat to bring the flavor out more.

Once the chicken is done, remove from pot, shred, then put back in pot.

Add the rest of your ingredients.

If adding noodles, I added about 4 small hand fulls (my hands are small!).  I still had too many noodles it for us.

Add 1 carton of chicken broth, keep your pot on a simmer temperature, put the lid on it and go take a nap!

In a few hours, your soup will be done and may need a bit more broth and possibly salt and pepper. The noodles soak up the broth and it can hardly look like soup after spending the night in the fridge.  So keep your reserved broth handy.

Enjoy and feel better!

Plum Salsa Recipe

Plum Salsa!

You know when you buy a bunch of fruit, with good intentions, only to find it got too ripe before you could eat it?

Yes, that was the inspiration for this recipe.  I had 2 very soft plums.

Plum Salsa 

2 very ripe plums chopped

1/4 red onion chopped

2 tsps apple cider vinegar 

dash of pink salt

sprinkle of dried cilantro (or fresh of course if you have it)

squirt of Sriracha sauce

Gently mix up your salsa and chill.

While you chill, let the salsa chill a bit so the flavors can marinate.   

My daughter taste tested and approved this on Keebler Club crackers.  Honey approved it on baked tilapia.  

I suppose this would be yummy on baked chicken or with tortilla chips or even a sandwich topping.

Enjoy!

Hey!... this is my 100th post!  (I guess only exciting news to me.  ha ha!)

Peach Salsa Chicken Recipe

Photo by Tracy Hilbun

Peach Salsa Chicken

Super easy and yummy supper.  This is not an original idea.  I think this is a take on a Weight Watchers recipe.  

My ingredients:

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts

Betty's Country Store Peach Salsa (Betty's Country Store is located in Helen, GA - about 10 miles from us)

Mozzarella cheese slices (part skim)

Pink Himalayan Salt

Pepper

Preheat oven to 375

Place your chicken breasts in a prepared glass baking dish (use cooking spray, oil, or butter)

Sprinkle a little salt and pepper on the chicken breasts

Top with salsa (maybe 1/2 cup on each breast?) {I'm terrible about measuring}

Cover dish with foil and bake for 20 minutes or so

After 20 minutes, remove chicken and add a slice of cheese to each chicken breast

Bake an additional 15-20 minutes re-covered in foil

After about 15 minutes, remove foil and bake an additional 10 minutes with an additional slice of cheese on each chicken breast to brown the cheese.

Enjoy with some nice low carb sides to complete your colorful plate!

Yummy, easy, cheesy!

Tracy's Vegetable Beef Stew Recipe

Let me start by saying that it is really, really, really cold here and it's supposed to be colder, in the middle of the night, when we leave for work.  This inspired me to make a soup or a stew for supper tonight and something that would warm us up for the next few nights.

"Honey, how about beef stew?" Honey replied, "ooo YES!"

I used to enjoy my mom's stew but the trick here... how did she make it (another recipe gone to Heaven with mom)?  Ha ha... well, this is where I picked up too many things at the grocery to make stew but in the long run, I think I have dinner for the next 3 nights and maybe some lunches too!  Basically, I have no idea how to make mom's stew or any stew, so I'll make Tracy's stew.  Of course this means it will be easy and fairly simple too!

Photo by Tracy Hilbun

Tracy's Vegetable Beef Stew

Ingredients:  This looks like 6-8 servings (maybe more depending on your bowls or honey's appetite)
1 bag frozen mixed vegetables (mine had peas, carrots, butter beans, green beans, and corn in it)
3-4 carrots, sliced
2 potatoes, sliced (peeled or unpeeled)
1 small onion, cut up in smaller pieces
10 (about) radishes, ends removed (I didn't go too heavy on these because I wasn't sure if they'd go over okay)
1 package of stew beef
8 cups of water
4-6 low sodium beef bullion packets
various spices and ingredients to taste:  garlic powder, pink himalayan salt, pepper, worcestershire sauce, rosemary, *red wine cubes, half and half


Go ahead and get your 8 cups of water in a stock pot, add the bullion and start heating on medium high to mix the bullion.  After you get this set up, brown your meat slightly on medium heat with a small amount of olive oil.  While the meat is browning, add the dry seasonings to the meat.

photo by Tracy Hilbun

When the pot of bullion starts getting rumbly, add the bag of frozen vegetables, the rest of the fresh vegetable ingredients and the stew beef.  Gently stir it up and add 4 frozen *wine cubes (not quite a half a glass of red wine) and a little half and half to make a pretty color (maybe 1/4 of a cup?)

Photo by Tracy Hilbun

Put a lid on the pot and let this simmering on a medium low setting for about 4 hours.  We cleaned up the basement and moved boxes around while mine cooked.

Photo by Tracy Hilbun

Honey said this was really good and enjoyed this served with crusty sourdough bread with grassfed butter.  It was pretty good.  Although I took a chance with the radishes, they really were nice blended with all of the vegetables and flavors.  

Note:  You may prefer a thickened broth and I think that would be awesome too, but I went for the thinner broth this time.  

Enjoy!

*Wine Cubes

Okay.. every now and then, honey and I have a glass of wine and for some reason, he doesn't always finish his.  I don't always want to finish his too, so I freeze the leftover wine in an ice cube tray to use in my spaghetti sauce or whatever I want to add it to, like tonight's stew.  You can also do this with your leftover coffee!  I've seen those used in mixed drinks, like with Irish Cream!  I'm thinking white wine cubes with small pieces of fruit would make a lovely compliment to a glass of white this summer.  Just thinkin'

Photo by Tracy Hilbun