Spring Chicken Soup

It’s been pretty soggy around here today. Felt like a good time to work on a soup post.

 Last year we started roasting whole chickens at home a couple of times a month. I loved having them around because: what served as a dinner one night turned into the following day’s chicken quesadilla, chicken salad sandwich, soup, salad, or pasta protein. And these days, I’ll take any opportunity to get ahead of the game.

Here’s a spring (or Mexican) spin on my Nana’s traditional chicken soup:

You’ll need:

• 4 1/2 cups of chicken stock (I try to keep some on hand in the freezer but the boxed low-sodium stock is tasty too. Click HERE for a tasty homemade stock
• One medium onion (diced)
• 1 clove of garlic (minced)
• 6 ounces of frozen or fresh corn
• 2 cups of cubed chicken – if you don’t feel like roasting a chicken grab a pre-roasted chicken from your local deli (or Costco).
• 2 large carrots ( peeled and sliced)
• 8-10 spears of asparagus (cleaned, trimmed and cut into 1″ pieces)
• 1 lime (sliced)
• 1 avocado (cut just before serving the soup)
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• fresh cilantro (trimmed)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Salt to taste

Method:

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and garlic, pepper, bay leaf and oregano. Sauté 2-3 minutes until onions are transparent. Add chicken, carrots and broth and bring to a low boil. Reduce heat and simmer until carrots are cooked but not soft. Taste for seasoning. Add asparagus and corn and simmer for a further 2-3 minutes. Serve and garnish with fresh lime, sliced avocado and cilantro.

p.s. If you’re not going to eat this right away I would suggest that you hold off on the asparagus. Nobody likes mushy asparagus. Instead, blanch and chill the asparagus and add a minute before you dish out. It will maintain some of its delicious crunch that way.

Happy long weekend to you!

p.s. Love these bowls  and this pretty apron 

Rain City?

From thunder and lightening to slurpee sipping sunshine. It’s hard to know what to wear on our feet these days. That’s Vancouver weather for you. 

Hope your week is going well.

xo

p.s. how adorable are these? Given my daughter’s purple obsession, I think she would approve.

On Motherhood

Mothers are truly amazing people. I’m not entirely sure that I knew that before becoming a mother myself. Not to say that I didn’t appreciate my mother or grandmothers, I did; I just had no idea how much energy it took to be a good mother. Now that I have a three-year-old, and some of the new-mom fog has lifted, I can really reflect on how hard the ladies in my life worked to make sure that life was good. And because of them, and other amazing mothers in my life, I have the tools (hopefully) to help pass along their lessons, culture, and love, to my own daughter.

It’s pretty neat if you think about the many things that we teach our children that stem from a long line of mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers. I find myself teaching J to make a soup that my Nana taught me to make. No recipe, just by the memory of cooking with her. Also, every couple of weeks when we roast a chicken, we save the wishbone so that once it’s dry we can make a wish. That was something I always loved as a kid – and now J thinks it’s one of the greatest things ever. She always wishes for chocolate. And she always wins. (p.s. the longest piece of bone wins).

This year for Mother’s Day I decided to write a list of a few things that I love about being a mother. Because it’s those few things that make the tough, tiring, messy, emotionally draining, patience-testing days worth all the trouble. The bad – no matter how bad – is always outweighed by the good.

Here’s my list…

1. Morning hugs: pillow faced, rosy-cheeked, fuzzy hair, stinky breath hugs – I love ‘em!
2. When I get busted for being wrong. This happened to me the other day and it cracked me up. It just showed me that my ‘baby’ is growing up and that she will hold me accountable. I like that.
3. Watching J run down the street to meet me after work, yelling, “mommy! mommy!”. I know this will not last forever. Talk about lump in my throat.
4. Honest conversations. I love that kids will say exactly what’s on their minds. i.e. “Mommy, your hair doesn’t look so nice today”. Um, okay, I’ll try harder tomorrow. Thanks.
5. Random kisses and I love you’s. Hands down, the best!
6. Talking about dreams. The other morning it was, “I was dancing and you were eating cake”. Hmmm, sounds like a good party!
7. Hearing “I’m sorry I didn’t listen, Mom”. Whoa. BIG first.
8. Having someone to have morning dance parties with. News flash! my husband is not big on this.
9. Taking time to notice things: the leaves growing, the blossoms budding, the squirrel in the tree, worms in puddles, the “naked man!” – okay, we didn’t see a naked man, but J thinks all men without shirts are “naked”. Should be an interesting summer on the beach.
10. Seeing the love between daddy and daughter. I had the coolest dad and I know that J feels the same about her own.

Wishing all the inspiring, intelligent, funny, and hardworking mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers an amazing Mother’s Day.

*top picture is my mom and me from many moons ago.

Bits and Bites

Eggs and Asparagus

I’ve been seriously craving green stuff lately so I was happy when I came across this simple (and delicious!) recipe in Bon Appétit magazine.

 Last week I had it for lunch two days in a row, and I know it will make frequent appearances on my menu for as long as the asparagus is looking fresh and tasty. I might even be able to convince my husband to eat this…if I wrap the asparagus in bacon!

How to: 

Place trimmed asparagus in salted boiling water for 1-2 minutes (I like mine with a good bit of crunch). Strain. Top with a sunny side up egg, grated parmesan, salt and pepper. I added some crushed red pepper flakes for an extra kick and a dash of colour. Finish with a drizzle of  olive oil. So good!

By the way, here’s some hints on cooking perfect sunny side up eggs.

Hope you enjoy some sunshine today!

Cinco De Mayo

 As a little nod to our past restaurant days of throwing wild Cinco De Mayo parties, on Sunday, we cooked up a couple of plates of Huevos Rancheros – I don’t know why we don’t eat this for breakfast more often. Move over Pancakes!

 After morning ballet, we packed our beach bag, left daddy to get some reading done, and had a little grassy picnic.

She danced…

…and picked some flowers.

 Then, because it was so hot, we decided to go stick our feet in the ocean. It was super cold, but it felt really nice. J asked if we could go in. Guess we’ll need to wear our “bitinkees” next time.

 Look at that blue sky! What a nice day for those who ran in the marathon. Fingers crossed for some more sunny days this week.

 That little boy was working hard to make that stick stand up…

…but somebody I know kept on knocking it down. Ah, three.

 Kids have the cutest feet! And sand in-between toes, well that’s up there with best feelings in the world. As long as you’re at the beach, that is. Once home, sand is not that cool. And it always comes home with us. We had a sand stomping lesson yesterday. And I might have to take a page from my mother-in-law’s book and start hosing J down with a garden hose before going inside. Brilliant.

I’m so glad sundress weather has arrived since it is practically the only thing that J wants to wear these days. ‘Cause you know, “princesses DON’T wear jeans!”.

 We tried to build a sandcastle. We’re not pro yet but we’ll be working on it this summer. There’s also talk of burying daddy in sand. Ha.

Leaving anywhere these days seems like a huge challenge, be it from home to go somewhere, or trying to get home from the beach. It’s a slow process that requires patience. I’m not naturally a patient person (who knew?) so this must be good for me, right?

 We rolled in an hour after nap time, and when daddy went to read books to J, I made myself a Pink lemonade. With Tequila. And Triple sec. And Lime. Okay, it was a Pink Lemonade Margarita. What? Cinco de Mayo!

Happy Monday. Betcha the word on the street today will be “sunburn”.  A good sign that summer is on its way…

P.S. Our super easy Huevos Rancheros: Pan-fry corn tortillas in a bit of oil then spread with warm refried beans, top with sunny-side up eggs, ladle some enchilada sauce over the eggs (we used canned from the European deli on Davie street obviously fresh is way better if you’ve got the time), sprinkle eggs with feta cheese (or queso fresco if you can find it), toss a couple of slices of avocados on top and serve with fresh tomato salsa. Lime garnish.

The salsa we made was dead easy: 1 large tomato, half a jalapeño, a big squeeze of lime juice, 2 tbsp chopped cilantro, 2-3 tbsp diced white onion, salt, pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.

Salud!

A Fashion Love Affair

A few Sundays ago, I spent the morning shooting with my friend Cara for her style blog, A Fashion Love Affair. She is so much fun to photograph because she is always game for anything – even running down busy streets in heels. Love her! Here’s a peek at our morning.