Slow cooker Italian chicken and vegetable soup

Dinner or lunch doesn't get much cheaper than this!
This soup mix by itself is just $1.70 for 500g!
It's nutritious, delicious and very filling!!...and did I mention cheap!?!?!
Utilising nutritious legumes this soup mix contain dried peas, barley and lentils. Barley is not gluten free, you can use the italian soup mix which contains, beans, peas and lentils which is gluten free.
This mix contains 18% protein and 15% fibre which is great!
You can make this vegetarian by omitting the chicken and using vegetable stock.

Serves 6

Ingredients
3 carrots, ½ cm dice
3 stalks of celery, small dice
1 brown onion, small dice
6 cloves of garlic, chopped
4 bay leaves
1-2 tbsp dried basil
1 x 400g can diced tomatoes

1 litre of chicken or vegetable stock-this amount of liquid will make a souper thick soup, more like a stew. If you like it soupier you can add more liquid to taste at the end.

4 chicken lovely legs- You can find 'lovely legs' in most supermarkets. They have the skin and part of the bone removed. If unavailable, use chicken drumsticks, just be sure to remove the skin first or you will have bits of soft skin in the soup which doesn’t taste great. You could also just use 4 skinless chicken thighs, large dice.

250g or half a packet of dried soup mix- you can get this near the soup section at the supermarket and its really cheap!
Salt and pepper at the end.


Method
Put everything in your slow cooker and put on low for at least 8 hours. Everything should be nice and tender. When done you can take the chicken legs out, take the meat off and put the meat back in the slow cooker. Season with salt and pepper.

Apple, cinnamon & date muffins

Makes 10-12

Ingredients

1 cup of oat bran

1 cup spelt flour (or gf flour)

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon

2 apples, peeled, cored and small dice

2 eggs

6 dates, pitted

1 tsp vanilla extract

¼ cup of oil (neutral oil) or melted butter

1 cup of milk

Topping (optional)

¼ cup of rolled oats

1 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp oil or melted butter

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Mix together.

Preheat oven to 160c fan forced or 180c normal oven

Line or grease well a 12 holed muffin tin. I use silicon so they don’t stick.

Blitz up dates, oil, vanilla and eggs until smooth, then add the milk and mix in.

In a large bowl add the oat bran, flour, baking powder and cinnamon, mix in wet ingredients and apple. Combine well and then spoon mix into 10-12 muffin holes. Then sprinkle topping over each muffin. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Roasted warm vegetable salad with basil crème fraiche vinaigrette

Ingredients

600g sweet potato and potato-you can use a mix or just 1. Keep the skin on and chop to a 1 cm dice.

1 large broccoli, cut into florets

½ large cauliflower, cut into florets

300g green beans, top and tailed

Method

This is the timeline because the veg takes different times.

In an oven tray toss the potato/sweet potato in some olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast this at 200 c fan forced for 20 minutes. In another roasting tray toss the broccoli and cauliflower in olive oil, salt and pepper.

Then put the broccoli and cauliflower in the oven and roast for 10 minutes.

Throw the beans on top of the sweet potato and give them a toss through the oil, season with salt and pepper. Roast a further 15 minutes. Everything should now be cooked at the same time.

You can serve hot if you like but I served mine as a warm salad.

Add your protein, I had mine veg and did hard boiled eggs and pan fried haloumi. If you want vegan you can heat some lentils, chickpeas or cannellini beans.

So the sweet potato takes 45 minutes. The broc/cauli take 25 minutes and the beans take 15 minutes.

Basil, crème fraiche vinaigrette

Juice of 1 lemon

A handful of basil leaves

1 small clove of garlic

1 tbsp crème fraiche- or you can use sour cream or cream, or just use oil

2 tbsp mild tasting olive oil

Salt and pepper

Method

Pulse in a food processor until combined, Taste and adjust your seasonings.

Or finely chop the basil and garlic and mix by hand.

Honey, soy, garlic pork belly with asian slaw and crackling

Do you ever feel like pork belly but don't want to make a roast cause its too hot?!?!
Yeah, me too!
Check out this honey, soy, garlic, pork belly salad with asian slaw and cracklin!

For a super quick version you can use a normal pre cut pack of coleslaw plus any extra salad stuff like bean sprouts or thinly sliced capsicum, snow peas. Plus you can use pre made jars/tubes of chili, garlic and ginger. No judgement here:)
You could also to make it quicker by just stir frying the pork belly plain.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients
500g piece of pork belly- I have used the precooked one at woolies. Take the skin off.
1-2 red chilies, finely chopped-optional, if you are cooking for kids who don’t like chilli keep the chilli separate and look in the recipe to see where you can add it.
4 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 tbsp ginger, finely minced
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp tamari

For the slaw
This makes 4-6 serves
½ daikon- if you can’t find this use a bunch of radishes and grate them
½ small red cabbage, mine was really tiny-use ¼ of a bigger cabbage, finely shredded
2 carrots
3 stems of spring onion, thinly slice the white part and the green part and keep separate- put the green part in the slaw and put the white part with the garlic and ginger and chilli
Coriander, as much or as little as you like, it’s up to you! I always cut 4 cm or the root and stem and freeze for when I make curry pastes.
Very simple dressing of lemon juice and olive oil- about the juice of 1 lemon and 2 tbsp olive oil.

Method
Cut the pork belly into a manageable size (in half) and then slice into ½ cm strips across the grain.
Slice the skin into ½ cm slices- cook this on a low heat with some salt and oil if needed until golden brown, the fat will render down and they will go crispy. Takes about 15 minutes.
The daikon and carrot I used a spirooli to make very thin noodles, you can also grate them. Then add this to the red cabbage, spring onion, coriander and dressing. Combine well, add more lemon and olive oil if you need to.

Stir fry the pork belly in a large pan or wok for 5 minutes until golden brown, then add the white part of the spring onion, garlic, ginger and chilli. What I do- If you are cooking for kids leave out the chilli at this time and add it later.

Cook a further 1-2 minutes and then add your tamari and honey, stir and take off the heat. At this stage I would take the kids meat out and put on their plate. Then add the chilli, put back on the heat and cook for a few seconds.

Serve up your slaw and top with pork belly and crackling, plus you can garnish with extra chili, coriander and spring onion. You could also add some roasted chopped peanuts too. Another suggestion is you can put some cooked noodles in the slaw such as vermicelli, soba, egg noodles, rice noodles etc

Cajun chicken, chickpea and avocado salad with lemon and chive crème fraiche dressing

Serves 4

Ingredients

400g chicken breast or thigh ( I always do extra to have for lunches)

1 x 400g can of chickpeas, rinsed and drained

180g bag of mixed lettuce- You can use cos lettuce, rocket, baby spinach, chopped kale or coleslaw, whatever you like!

2 tomatoes, diced

2 lebanese cucumber, diced

1 small red onion, peeled, cut in half and sliced thinly

1 avocado, diced

1 portion of crème fraiche dressing (below)

Cajun spice mix (recipe below)

Method

Slice your chicken into 4 or so pieces and then rub some of the spice on both sides. It is up to you how much you would like to use. Heat a pan with a little oil and cook 4 minutes on each side or until no longer pink in the middle. At the end of cooking put in your chickpeas and heat through for 2 minutes.

To serve place your lettuce mix, tomato, cucumber, red onion and avocado onto 4 plates. Top with chicken and your crème fraiche dressing.

Crème fraiche, lemon and chive dressing

Ingredients

¼ cup of crème fraiche- or you can use sour cream

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp chopped chives

½ tsp Dijon mustard

Salt and pepper

Method
Mix together well. Add a little water to make a nice dressing consistency.

Cajun spice mix

Ingredients

¾ tsp salt

2 teaspoons garlic powder

2 tsp paprika

2 tsp smoked paprika

2 tsp dried oregano

2 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp dried rosemary

1 tsp onion powder

½ tsp chili powder (or to taste)

Method

Using a spice grinder or similar and grind to a powder. Keep in an airtight container.

Use to rub on beef, pork, chicken, fish and prawns

Apple fritters with an almond and coconut crumb

Well, you know I like to crumb things so last night I thought, what about crumbing apple and making apple fritters?!
The result was great!
Here is the recipe


Ingredients
2 large apples
¾ cup of almond flour
¼ cup of desiccated coconut
¼ cup of corn flour
1 egg, beaten
Cinnamon sugar to dust in when cooked. Use a ratio of 1:3 -1 tbsp of cinnamon to 3 tbsp of a granulated sugar such as panella.


Method

Peel your apple and using an apple corer, take the core out. Cut each apple into 4 rings, trim each end a tiny bit so they will cook evenly.

Mix the almond flour and coconut together.

Toss the apple rings in the corn flour, then the egg and then the crumb mix. Press the crumbs in well.

In a large pan cover the bottom with oil. Heat on a low to medium heat and cook the apple fritters 1-2 minutes each side until golden brown. Do not have too high or the outside with be too dark before the apple is cooked through. When done take out and put on paper towels if needed and then coat in the cinnamon sugar. You can serve with cream/ice cream/crème fraiche if you like!