New recipes

With mom having such a bad time with her back lately, but not being a person that likes to sit there and do nothing, she's taken up cooking a lot more and trying new recipes, dehydrating things and canning up whatever she possibly can :)  Today we are trying two new recipes, Collard Green, Olive Oil & Parmesan Soup.  Very, very easy recipe that mom and I had done in just a few minutes and in the crock pot to sit for a few hours before dinner time.  Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in large skillet over medium-high heat, add 1 small Spanish onion, sliced and 3 cloves of minced garlic with some salt and pepper.  Cook and stir 4 to 5 minutes, until the onion begins to soften.  Wash and chop 2 pounds of collard greens (or kale, we substituted kale for the collard greens ourselves) and add, cook and stir a few minutes until it becomes bright green and tender.  Add 8 cups of chicken broth to a crock-pot and add the collard green, garlic and onion mixture in the broth.  Cover, cook on low for 3 hours.  Then you just spoon the soup into bowls, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and voila!  Here are some pics...

After the collard greens had been added to the onions and garlic

Into the chicken broth to sit until dinner time - yum!

And for the next recipe for the evening, Chicken & Rice.  We have made chicken and rice before, but this was a bit different.  You combine flour, salt and pepper into a ziploc bag, add chicken thighs (about 10 of them), get them nice and coated.  In a large skillet, over medium heat, brown chicken in oil (just a bit of oil, not doing a full pan or deep fry, just getting them brown).  In an ungreased baking dish, place 1 cup of uncooked long grain rice, sprinkle with 1/4 chopped onion, and 2 cloves of mined garlic. Top with mushrooms (we used 3 or 4 large, fresh mushrooms), add 2 cups of chicken broth (we actually tripled this recipe with the rice since we have a lot of mouths to feed, so we used 3 cups of rice and so on).  Place the chicken on top, cover and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until the chicken is cooked and rice is tender.  Sprinkle with parsley if you like.  Here are a few pics...

The chicken being browned

The rice, chicken broth, onion, garlic and mushrooms, waiting for the chicken

In the oven and cooking now!

And for a little something else, we got a ton of garlic the other day at a good price so mom chopped it all up and it's in the dehydrator.  Hoping to get a mortar and pestle soon and I can make our own garlic powder ;)