Recipe for chicken tortilla soup

I’m really good at following recipes, but this one I had to improvise on because I lost the original recipe! It came in one of those fliers from Trader Joe’s. It took me a couple of tries to get it just right. You can get the ingredients almost anywhere (including Trader Joe’s of course). This is the “cheat” version, which uses canned versions of everything but of course you can make everything from scratch separately if you’re not as lazy as I am (or just not very patient).

Also, it’s a good way to use up all those broken tortilla chips at the bottom of the bag.

Ingredients:

about a half-pound of chicken (I like chicken breast and then I cube it, but you can use anything)

one carton of chicken broth/stock (or you can make your own)

one can of corn

one can of black beans (drained and strained, so the soup doesn’t turn gray)

one small jar of prepared salsa (I like the chunky salsa from Trader Joe’s but you can also use Pace) — I sometimes can get away with about 3/4 jar

For garnish: broken tortilla chips, sour cream, shredded cheese

Directions:

1. Cook the chicken. I typically just go ahead and boil it in the broth and then bring it back down to a simmer.

2. Add corn and beans. Stir stir stir.

3. Add salsa. Stir stir stir.

4. Ladle into bowls and garnish with a dollop of sour cream, shredded cheese and tortilla chips.

5. You’re done. Eat.

Save Money Monday – sweet tea!

I am going to try to make each Monday a money-saving entry. The thing is, I am really terrible at saving money (consider the pounds of rotten/expired food that my husband just cleaned out of the fridge last night). But I try to save money in any way I can. At the very least, it makes up for my impulsive days.

Today is about sweet tea. OK, I have to admit I had never heard of sweet tea until I made some friends who hail from the South. I am a Filipino Californian whose best friends happen to be mostly Jewish, Filipino and Chinese. So I was never exposed to sweet tea until I made my first visit to Houston, Texas.

My good friend Heather, who is from North Carolina, explained sweet tea to me. The sugar is added when the water is hot, so that it dissolves much better. If you add the sugar when the tea or water is cold, then you just get tiny grains of sugar when you’re slurping it up. This is probably why I ordered raspberry iced tea from restaurants — even though that is much too sweet for me. Ditto the Nestea powder, which I used to live on as a child.

When Fresh & Easy opened up in our town, they had a box of English breakfast tea with 100 bags in it for $2. Score! Before I found the wonders of Trader Joe’s spicy chai mix (a post about that later), I had black tea for breakfast every morning. So this was a great deal for me.

My own recipe for sweet tea (which is probably similar to a lot of old Southern grandmas’ recipes out there):

Boil water in a tea kettle.

Just as it’s about to whistle, remove from heat and pour into a pitcher.

Add about 8 tablespoons of raw sugar and a few squeezes of honey. (I know the honey doesn’t make it sweet tea anymore. I don’t care.  I like it, and it tastes good.) Also, I understand the amount of sugar can vary all the way up to a full cup per pitcher, depending on taste. I tend to like it less sweet.

Stir, stir, stir.

Submerge 4 tea bags in the water, and clip tags to the side of the pitcher. This just makes it easy to fish out the bags later. I let it steep for about 5 minutes. If you like your tea weaker, use fewer tea bags or steep for a shorter period.

Add a bunch of ice cubes and then chill in the fridge for a few hours.

Ta-da! It is actually very simple, and it comes out to pennies per pitcher if you buy the tea in bulk.

Save Money Monday

Today as I made my son’s breakfast, I figured I’d share two really easy money- and food-saving tips.

The first tip is for kids who enjoy yogurt. When Gavin was about a year old, I’d buy those 6-packs of YoBaby. Well, he wouldn’t ever finish an entire carton. Yogurt wasted. After about 75% of each yogurt carton was wasted, instead I started buying the big carton (32 oz) of plain whole-milk yogurt. (They have lowfat and non-fat versions as well. I don’t buy the vanilla because I believe there might be sugar added.) I spoon a few tablespoons into a bowl and add a tablespoon of strawberry preserves.

I waste less of the following: food, money, packaging. I spend a little more time with preparing the yogurt and then washing dishes afterward, but that’s OK.

The second tip is regarding juice. I was never a fan of giving children any juice at all; I would have preferred that Gavin only drink milk and water. But he got it at daycare and at his grandparents’ house. Soon we were all drinking way too much apple juice. That’s a lot of sugar! I started diluting the juice about 50/50. Sometimes it’s only about 25% juice and 75% water, but usually he can’t tell the difference.

I also avoid juice boxes for this reason. I can’t dilute a juice box easily!

I think these are two really easy and nearly effort-free ways to improve a child’s diet and increase the money in your wallet, even if it’s just little by little.