Main Dish

Roasted Poblano and Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe + Chopped At Home Challenge

11 · May 17, 2016 ·

+ This Roasted Poblano and Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe brought to you by Food Networks Chopped & Sargento +

What I have for you today is, a Roasted Poblano and Chicken Tortilla Soup topped with a fresh avocado, tomato and lime salsa and Sargento® Fine Cut Shredded 4 Cheese Mexican Blend…

Do those words sound familiar?

If they do, you must be a fan of the Food Network and the fan favorite show, Chopped. I’ve been a Food Network fan for years and have dreamed of saying those words. The thrill of opening that basket full of crazy ingredients. The panic of trying to figure out what to create and the nail biter at the end… Who’s plate is on the chopping block?

You can forget extreme sports or bungee jumping for me, my thrill seeking experience would be on the set of Chopped! When the folks at Chopped and Sargento came to me and asked if I would participate in Round Two of the At Home Chopped Challenge… You know I was thrilled to participate!

This round, the theme is Mexican. What’s in the basket you ask?

When I saw those ingredients, Sargento® 4 Cheese Mexican Blend, chicken thighs, Poblano peppers and corn tortillas, my first thought was tortilla soup. One of my favorite soups of all times is Tortilla Soup. However, that can mean a million different things to different people. I have had at least 25 different variations on Tortilla Soup. Some have a tomato broth base while others have a lovely chicken broth base full of spices. It can be packed full of veggies or just broth, chicken and tortillas. Some have been topped with all kinds of great garnishes like avocados, tomatoes, sour cream and the like. I decided it was high time for me to try my hand at creating my very own tortilla soup recipe and this was the perfect opportunity!

My soup was going to have a deep rich chicken broth full of cumin, Mexican oregano, chili flakes & Harissa. I was going to brown my chicken thighs in a cast iron skillet and then finish in the oven for a flavorful chicken and I was going to roast the Poblano peppers to deepen the pepper flavor. This was going to be my idea of the perfect Tortilla Soup… Roasted Poblano and Chicken Tortilla Soup! Here’s the recipe…

Roasted Poblano and Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe

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Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

1 hour

Total time

1 hour 15 mins

A beautiful take on the classic Tortilla Soup perfect for any occasion.

Author: Heather // WhipperBerry

Cuisine: Soup

Serves: 10-12 servings

Ingredients

6 skinless chicken thighs
2 tablespoons olive oil
4-5 Poblano peppers
1 large onion chopped
4 cloves of minced garlic
3 tablespoons cumin
1 tablespoon Mexican oregano
1 teaspoon chili flakes
2-3 bay leaves
1 tablespoon Harissa
12 cups chicken broth
2 15.5 oz cans of white hominy
salt to taste
+ GARNISH +
10 corn tortillas
1 cup vegetable oil
salt
Sargento® Shredded 4 Cheese Mexican Blend
2 avocados
2 cups of quartered grape or cherry tomatoes
2 green onions chopped
1 lime - juiced
salt & pepper to taste

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 400˚
In a large heavy bottomed pan heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium high heat.
Season chicken thighs with salt and pepper and place in the hot pan. Turn down the heat to medium.
Cook the chicken on one side for 4-5 minutes or until nicely browned.
Turn and place in the oven for another 15 minutes.
Remove from oven and set-aside.
In a dry cast-iron or heavy pan, place the Poblano pepper over high heat. Let the skin blister and blacken on all sides.
Remove the peppers from the pan and place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, let cool for 10 minutes then gently pull the charred skin off and discard. Cut peppers into large bite-sized pieces and set aside.
In a large pot over medium heat, add 1 tablespoon olive oil and the chopped onion. Cook for 3-4 minutes and add garlic cook for another minute.
Add the cumin, oregano, chili flakes and Harissa powder and cook for another minute.
Add chicken stock and bring the up the temperature to medium high and let stock simmer for 20 minutes.
Clean-up the chicken thighs by removing from bones and remove any remaining fat. Chop or shred into bite-size pieces.
Add the chicken, hominy & pepper to the pot. Cook for 1-2 more minutes and then remove from the heat.
+ Tortilla Strips +
In a medium cast iron or heavy bottomed pan over medium high heat, add your vegetable oil.
Cut corn tortillas into thin strips and add to the hot oil in small batches.
Cook for 1-2 minutes until they start to turn a light brown.
Remove from heat and place on a paper towel and sprinkle with salt
Set aside until ready to serve the soup.
+ Tomato & Avocado Salsa +
In a small bowl, add quartered tomatoes, diced avocado, green onion, salt & pepper and the juice from one lime. Stir until combined.
Serve soup hot with a nice layer of Sargento® shredded 4 Cheese Mexican Blend topped with tortilla strips and the tomato & avocado salsa.

Chicken Tortilla Soup from WhipperBerry-1

Now of course you can add all kinds of cilantro if you’d like as well. We aren’t big cilantro fans at our house so I tend to leave that out, but it’s totally up to you and your taste.

You know what’s super cool!

YOU can enter the Chopped At Home Challenge for a chance to WIN $10,000 + a Trip to New York to have a private cooking lesson at the Food Network Kitchens.

Ummmm, sign me up! That’s the coolest prize EVER!!

All you need to do is Submit your recipe to FoodNetwork.com/ChoppedChallenge for the chance to win $5,000 and a trip to New York City to compete in a televised Chopped cooking challenge for a $10,000 grand prize.

You don’t want to delay… Phase 2 Entry 4/25/16 at 9am – 5/23/16 at 9am with voting 5/23/16 at 9am – 6/13/16 at 5pm

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Sargento. The opinions and text are all mine.

Tomato Jam Recipe + GIVEAWAY

6 · Apr 28, 2016 · 12 Comments

My earliest food memories are of tomatoes…

No joke! One of my earliest memories is picking a tomato from the vine out of my Dad’s garden. I was two and a half or three and sat down and ate those scrumptious tomatoes right then and there. I remember the smell that fills the air when you pull the tomato from the vine. It’s earthy with a hint of grass and a promise of good things to come. I remember, even as a three year old, eating that tomato that was still warm from the heat of the day… magical!

From that point forward I wanted tomato on EVERYTHING!

I remember refusing to eat tacos one night because my Mom had forgotten to get tomatoes from the store. Yep, I would rather go without the taco if it was missing my favorite tomatoes. I was six or seven at the time, but I still have the same feelings as an adult… I just have to act like an adult and not throw a fit.

Tomatoes are truly one of my favorite foods.

Because of that, I was thrilled to find out about Bushel Boy Tomatoes™ grown right here in the USA, in Minnesota to be exact.

The crew at Bushel Boy has developed a fabulous greenhouse system that helps them grow tomatoes year-round. Yep, even in January they have beautiful red, vine ripened tomatoes ready for us to add to our salads and sandwiches.

You can find all kinds of tasty ideas at the Bushel Boy Facebook.

The Bushel Boy Tomatoes are pollinated with bees… the natural way. They also limit the amount of pesticides used and have eliminated herbicides all together. They have worked really hard to create a tomato that takes me back to those magical days in my Dad’s garden.

One of my Dad’s favorite sandwiches of all time is the classic BLT… Bacon, Lettuce & Tomato. Being a tomato lover myself, it’s one of my favorites too. A few years ago my husband and I were at a restaurant and we were introduced to tomato jam. When I read about it on the menu my mind was blown and I couldn’t wait to make my own.

Tomato Jam is both savory and sweet at the same time. It cooks down those flavorful tomatoes into a virtual tomato bomb that really enhances all kinds of sandwiches or appetizers.

You know when you’ve eaten something transcending at a restaurant and wished that you could duplicate that kind of flavor at home, that is what tomato jam does. It takes your normal BLT and kicks it up SEVERAL notches.

The best part… It’s SUPER EASY to make!

This recipe is inspired by Mark Bittman’s Tomato Jam recipe. Tomato Jam is perfect for a high end BLT appetizer OR just your everyday BLT sandwich that we all love. I’ll show you how to make both.

Tomato Jam Recipe

5.0 from 1 reviews

Tomato Jam

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Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

1 hour 15 mins

Total time

1 hour 25 mins

Tomato Jam is perfect to add a little kick to your sandwiches & appetizers.

Author: Heather // WhipperBerry

Serves: 1 pint

Ingredients

1½ lbs. Bushel Boy Tomatoes
2-3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 small red onion
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
4 cloves
1 teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

Instructions

Wash tomatoes
Cut in quarters and remove seeds then give them a rough chop.
Add to a medium, heavy bottom sauce pot and place over high heat.
Add remaining ingredients and let tomatoes come to a boil.
Reduce heat to medium-low and let simmer, stirring occasionally for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until it's nice and thick like jam. You should be able to run a spoon down the center of the pot and the jam will stay in place.
Remove from heat and let cool.
Place in a jar, refrigerate for up to one week.

First, wash and prep your tomatoes.

Cut tomatoes in quarter and remove the seeds.

Give them a rough chop.

Add the rest of your ingredients and place over high heat until it comes to a boil, then reduce to medium-low to simmer for 1 hour and 15 minutes stirring occasionally.

Remove from the heat when your tomatoes have cooked down to a jam consistency.

Now that you’ve made your tomato jam… Here are two ways you can serve it.

BLT Crostini with Tomato Jam Appetizer

You can find the recipe HERE.

Or you can have a slightly fancy…

BLT Sandwich with Tomato Jam

Click HERE for the recipe.

Now that I’ve gotten you in a tomato mood… How about a GIVEAWAY!

The lovely folks at Bushel Boy are giving one of you a fabulous Wüsthof Tomato Knife. Here’s what you need to do to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

What is your favorite way to use tomatoes?

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Bushel Boy Tomatoes. The opinions and text are all mine.

Summer Brunch Recipes // Peas with Bacon Side Dish

4 · Sep 8, 2015 · 1 Comment

Compensation for this post was provided by Unilever via AOL Media. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of Unilever or AOL.

Who’s ready for a beautiful summer brunch?

In the last little bit, I’ve shared some of my favorite brunch dishes. First, we have the Lemon Drop Crêpes…

Followed by a savory Summer Vegetable Frittata…

Today… To round off the entire meal, I’m sharing a perfect side dish, Peas with Bacon…

To me, fresh peas just scream summer. I’ve loved peas my whole life. I know they are one of those love-em-or-hate-em foods, but I LOVE them. I have fond memories of my mom giving me little bowls of frozen peas to snack-on while she was making dinner when I was little.

For this menu, I thought a nice peas dish would round out the menu nicely. I’m keeping it simple with just a few basic ingredients.

Peas with Bacon

1 10 oz. package of fresh or frozen peas

1 tablespoon I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter®

1/2 of a small white onion diced

3 pieces of thick cut bacon (feel free to substitute with turkey bacon as a lighter option!)

Cut your bacon into small pieces called lardons and cook in a medium sauté pan over medium heat until fully cooked. Remove the bacon and drain the remaining bacon grease. I also wipe the pan out with a paper towel to remove as much of the bacon grease as possible. As much as I love to have the bacon in this and many other dishes, I don’t want to use the bacon grease as the fat to cook my food in. Any kind of animal fat is full of saturated or trans fat that we don’t really need in our diet, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have any kind of fat.

When I am planning out meals for my family, I look for ways to add good fats to our meals, such as plant-based fats like avocados, sunflower oil, almonds (which contain omega-3 ALA) and salmon (which contain omega-3 EPA/DHA fatty acids). I’ve found one of the easiest ways to incorporate some of those good fats is to use I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter® to my meal planning. I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter® has 40% fewer calories and 70% less saturated fat than butter per serving. Not to mention, it has no artificial flavors, no artificial preservatives and no partially hydrogenated oils. It has non-GMO sourced ingredients, it’s cholesterol-free with 0 grams of trans fats per serving plus so much more! Now that’s the kind of good fat that I want my family eating. You can find out all kinds of good stuff about I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter® HERE.

With all that… I took out as much bacon grease out of my pan as possible and replaced it with I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter®. I let the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter melt in the pan and then add the onion and let it sweat.

After a minute or two I add the peas. If you are using fresh peas make sure you steam them first.

Sauté the peas for 3-4 minutes in the onion and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter add salt & pepper to taste. When the peas are cooked through, add your bacon and give it a toss.

Add to a serving bowl and top with a dollop of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter & chives if you have them on hand…

This tasty side-dish rounds out our summer brunch menu. All you need to complete the menu is to add some fresh fruit and a tasty drink like my Herbal Tea Lemonade and it will be lovely!

One serving (1 Tbsp.) contains 295mg of omega-3 ALA, which is 18% of the 1.6g daily value for ALA

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! sources ingredients that are not genetically modified. However, in the field-to-tub journey of making our buttery spread there is some contact with genetically modified vegetable oils, resulting in a small amount in this product.

Vegetable Frittata

0 · Aug 31, 2015 · Leave a Comment

Compensation for this post was provided by Unilever via AOL Media. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of Unilever or AOL.

Not too long ago, I shared my love of all things brunch!

I shared one of my all-time favorite breakfast treats… Lemon Drop Crêpes.

Little did you know, that post was just the beginning. I’ve been working on creating a fabulous summer inspired brunch menu that is perfect for celebrating this time of year.

I adore summer. There is just something special about this time of year. The warm weather, trips to the lake, sleeping-in and farmers markets. I LOVE spending the morning at the farmers market and running home with my bounty to create a fun meal for the family.

We love eggs here in our house. We typically have some type of egg dish for dinner at least once a week. Eggs are a fantastic source of protein and paired with good fats, they make for a fantastic meal! When I was working on this summer brunch menu I knew I had to incorporate a tasty egg dish. I came up with a lovely Summer Vegetable Frittata.

What is a frittata? It’s kind of like an oven baked omelet. You add your favorite ingredients to an oven-safe skillet. Top it with an egg mixture, lightly start the cooking process on the stove and then finish it off in the oven. They are super quick and simple to make.

For this recipe we start with some simple fresh ingredients…

Summer Vegetable Frittata Recipe

9 eggs

1/3 cup of whipped chive cream cheese

2 tablespoons heavy cream (feel free to substitute with skim milk as a lighter alternative!)

salt & pepper

1 1/2 cups of shredded Italian cheese blend

2 tablespoons + 1/2 teaspoon I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter®

1/2 small white onion

1 cup asparagus

2 cups grape tomatoes

1 lemon

1 bunch of chives

1 tablespoon feta cheese

When you are putting together a dish like this, you want to make sure that your ingredients are fresh and nutritious . Have you thought much about the fats that you use when cooking lately?

We need some type of good fat in our diet… We ALL do! Good fats are a source of energy and essential fatty acids your body can’t produce on its own. When I was putting together this frittata recipe, I used I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter® as the fat that I used to sauté my vegetables in.

I tend to stick with I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter® because I know that it’s provides good fats. It has 40% fewer calories and 70% less saturated fat than butter per serving. Not to mention that it has no artificial flavors, no artificial preservatives and no partially hydrogenated oils. It has non-GMO sourced ingredients and it’s cholesterol free with 0 grams of trans fats per serving.. That exactly what I’m looking for when I’m cooking for my family!

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350˚.

In a medium sized bowl, add your eggs, cream cheese, heavy cream, salt, pepper and 1 cup of shredded cheese.

Whisk together and set aside.

In a oven-safe skillet over medium heat, add 2 tablespoons of I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter®. Once the I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter® has melted, add your diced onion and sauté for 3-4 minutes over medium heat. Add the asparagus and cook for another minute and a half.

Next, add 1/2 of your tomatoes and sauté for 1 minute. Reserve the remaining tomatoes for a garnish.

Pour in the egg mixture and cook just like you would scrambled eggs for 1 minute. This give the frittata a little body and helps the veggies to stay suspended in the dish rather than just fall to the bottom of the pan.

After one minute, add the remaining cheese to the top and place in a 350˚ oven for 15-20 until it look just set.

Remove the frittata from the oven and let rest for 10-15 minutes.

In the meantime, prep your tomato salad garnish. In a small microwave safe bowl, melt a 1/2 teaspoon of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter®. This should take no more than 20-30 seconds. Add the remaining halved tomatoes to the bowl along with a tablespoon of fresh squeezed lemon juice, salt, pepper & 1 tablespoon of freshly chopped chives. Once the frittata has rested, add your tomato salad & feta cheese to garnish and serve.