Our Texas Suburbia

 Healthy yet delicious and savory. My chicken tortilla soup recipe does not disappoint. This broth based dish is everything you want out of tortilla soup. Not only is it tasty, but it can also be a healthy addition to your diet. Give this recipe a try and you will surely see it added to your meal rotation.  Ingredients: 2 anaheim peppers, diced 1 poblano pepper, diced 1 medium yellow onion, diced 1 1/2 tsp cumin 250g cooked shredded chicken 3 cubes chicken bullion (we use knorr brand) 7 cups of water to cook the bullion in 1- 14 oz can of rotel  1/2 cup uncooked rice (preferably brown but any works) 2 tbsp lime juice  1/4 c diced fresh cilantro  1/4 c salsa (we use the Texas brand restaurant style) Optional: 1/2 c corn Can be topped with cheese, sour cream,  tortilla strips, and/or avocado slices. Directions: Use a stock pot with a lid to boil your chicken, 7 cups of water, and all of the bouillon cubes until the chicken is cooked to 165 degrees Fahrenheit....

 An excellent meal replacement. I usually enjoy this smoothie for breakfast or post workout. The hint of cinnamon is scrumptious! Ingredients  6 oz whole milk  100g frozen banana  11g honey 1 pack or 32g Justin’s Cinnamon Almond Butter  5g cocoa powder  1/8 tsp vanilla extract 5 ice cubes   Method: Combine all of the ingredients into a quality blender. Use a high setting for about 2 minutes or until you no longer hear the ice being crushed. Pour into a large cup and enjoy! I personally prefer a glass pint cup and glass straw.   *Approximately 460 calories 

 

 A white, fluffy, smooth buttercream with a delicate vanilla flavor. Perfect for topping cakes, cupcakes, and cookies. You’ll need a stand mixer or hand mixer for this one or the consistency just won’t be right. Your welcome in advance! My husband says “ get yo glucose monitors ready!” 😝  Ingredients   2 c Crisco (384g) 1/2 c butter (112g, I use Land O Lakes Olive Oil and Sea Salt) 1 2lb bag (907g)(32oz) of powdered sugar  1/2 tsp salt 2 tbsp heavy cream (30g) 2 tbsp light corn syrup (30g) 2-3 tbsp vanilla extract (20-30g) Method Combine all ingredients in your stand mixer bowl or large mixing bowl. Turn your choice of stand or hand mixer on low for 1 min and then increase the speed to high for 5 mins. After 5 mins turn off your mixer and stir the icing to incorporate the ingredients that may be sticking to the sides. Turn your mixer back on the high for 5 more minutes. Enjoy!  Refrigerate the icing if you don’t plan on using it right away. It will keep for 3 d...

 I’ve been trying a lot of new cookie recipes lately. One in particular was a sugar cookie recipe. I wanted to make snowflakes using a cookie cutter I have and I had a lot of trouble getting the shape to hold. My dough was soft and when I would transfer the cookie from my cutting surface to my baking sheet it would cause malformed edges. I also tried laying parchment paper on my baking tray and cutting my dough directly on the sheet I’d be baking with. Then, I tried pulling off the unnecessary dough between snowflakes. The dough clung to the parchment and stuck so bad! I was annoyed however I had a plan. I rolled  my cookie dough onto parchment paper laid onto a cookie sheet. Then, I put my dough in the freezer. I let it sit in there for around 30 minutes. A miracle happened! I was able to cut shapes with the cookie cutter and the edges were sharp and perfect! As an added bonus, the dough stuck to my cookie cutter so I could carry over to a newly set up baking tray with parchm...

We are decorating gingerbread houses this weekend! Yay! Last year we attempted to assemble the typical store bought gingerbread houses and failed miserably. The kit comes with royal icing to hold everything together and I didn’t realize it takes a long time for the icing to dry and actually hold together. Our houses fell apart in a matter of minutes...ugh. This year I had a different plan and it worked so well. I ditched the royal icing for assembly purposes and instead I used white chocolate melting wafers from Ghirardelli. It worked amazingly well. I simply melted the wafers per the instructions on the package in a small glass bowl and used a popsicle stick to spread the chocolate where it was needed. I was also able to dip some sides directly into the bowl to make it even easier. The chocolate set within a minute so that the house would stand well enough on its own and completely dried in about 5 mins. I will do this every year now! Let me know if you try it.