**The Art of Quickie Chicken Minestrone**

When it comes to cooking, sometimes simplicity is the best approach. This article will guide you through the process of making a delicious and comforting chicken minestrone soup, also known as quickie chicken ministrone, that's perfect for a weeknight dinner or a cozy weekend meal.

To start, we need to prepare our ingredients and setting up the pot for a flavorful broth. "Before we add the meat to the pot, let's take a minute to salt it on both sides," says [insert name]. This will help season the chicken evenly and prevent any bitter flavors from coming through in the broth. The recommended amount of raw elbow macaroni is 3/4 cup, which will not only add body to our soup but also create a delightful starchiness.

Unlike traditional cooking methods where pasta is cooked separately, we'll be cooking it directly in the soup. This technique allows for a harmonious blend of flavors and textures that elevates our dish from ordinary to extraordinary. The beautiful starches released by the pasta as it cooks will meld with the chicken broth, creating a rich and satisfying base for our minestrone.

With our ingredients ready, we'll add the chicken breasts to the pot along with 3/4 cup of elbow macaroni. Since there's no fat on a chicken breast or skin to hide in, we must be gentle when cooking it. Instead of high-heat boiling, which can break down the meat and make it tough, we'll use a gentle simmer to cook our chicken breasts submerged completely in the liquid. The resulting soup will have a depth of flavor that's hard to achieve with separate-cooked ingredients.

As our soup simmers away for 8 to 10 minutes, the aroma wafting from the pot is sure to tantalize your taste buds. Once cooked, we'll remove the chicken breasts using a slotted spoon and let them cool for just a minute before breaking up the meat into bite-sized pieces. We'll then return these tender chunks of chicken to the pot, stirring gently to combine.

The beauty of this recipe lies in its simplicity. The soup comes with its own built-in markers for when it's done – we can check by looking at the elbow macaroni or waiting until our chicken breasts are cooked through. This ensures that every component is perfectly cooked without having to worry about overcooking or underseasoning.

The finishing touches, such as adding a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese and a pinch of basil, complete this dish with elegance. You can choose to add these toppings in various ways – some like to stir them directly into the soup while others prefer to let guests help themselves. Whichever method you prefer, the end result is sure to be satisfying.

In many families, a quickie meal like chicken minestrone has been passed down through generations, much like our parents' favorite dishes. As we enjoy this hearty soup, remember that sometimes it's okay to take inspiration from those who came before us and make something truly special with love and care.

**Tips for the Perfect Quickie Chicken Ministrone**

* Salt your chicken on both sides before adding it to the pot for even seasoning.

* Use raw elbow macaroni for its starchiness and to add body to the soup.

* Be gentle when cooking the chicken breasts to prevent breaking down the meat.

* Let the soup simmer for 8-10 minutes to allow flavors to meld together.

* Break up cooked chicken into bite-sized pieces before returning it to the pot.

* Don't forget to stir in Parmesan cheese and basil at the end for added flavor and visual appeal.

By following these simple steps, you'll be able to create a delicious quickie chicken ministrone that's sure to become a family favorite.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI am making my sausage squash bean and charred soup which is so comforting and Hearty it is sure to satisfy all the farmers and their spouses to the core and it's all built in one pot I'm starting with a pound of spicy Italian sausage which is such a great shortcut to more flavor so I'll Brown this sausage over medium high heat as I break it up with the spoon oh it smells so good already I'm smelling the fennel there's a lot of red pepper in this sausage I like an extra spicy Italian sausage all right I'm ready for my veggies I have chopped yellow onion celery and butternut squash I'll toss these all in I'll add a good couple of pinches of salt to draw the moisture out of these veggies and help them soften quicker I'll stir these around bathe these veggies in the sausage fats and allow them to soften for about 5 to 8 minutes as the veggies finish up softening I'll T in some fresh Rosemary some garlic and a couple of bay leaves to infuse the soup with herbiness so whenever I add garlic to a soup like this I have my liquids standing by to add as soon as the garlic starts smelling good because then when you add the liquids kind of stops that cooking of the garlic I'll pour in a can of whole peeled tomatoes and then break them up with my spoon spoon and then some beans a can of chickpeas and a can of calini beans that have been rinsed and drained they add such great creaminess and now I'll bring it together with a quart of low sodium chicken stock and I'm using low sodium just to make sure that I'm not over salting it and six cups of water it's a full pot I'll stir this around and bring it to a boil and then reduce to a simmer and allow this to cook for about 25 minutes until the squash is tender I'm ready to be cozy my soup is almost done simmering I'm going to finish it up with a tile of Swiss chard because the bitterness it's a nice bright moment in an otherwise very hearty soup I'm just removing the stems they're a little bit too tough I'll feed them to the chickens and then I'll roll up these leaves and chop them into pretty skinny ribbons that'll be easy to eat when here spooning up the soup all the warm colors in this soup between the squash and the tomatoes and the sausage they need something green my favorite color okay I'll pile this in I like this kind of balance a little bit of sausage a lot of greens it's cooking down already yum I'll season with a little more salt and some black pepper okay looks gorgeous to me now this absolutely needs sourdough for dunking and I happen to have some toasting in my oven right now I'll Ladle up a bowl I'll pile it high so that the good stuff Peaks out I'll finish with a tiny drizzle of olive oil a black pepper the bread is basically the spoon in this scenario a spoon that can also soak up soup that is one cozy soup cheesy sausage one pot Yi I cooked some crumbled Italian sausage and it's got some beautiful fat left in the pan so I'm going to set this aside and I'll add it back into the dish later so to this pan I'm going to add some shallot and garlic all right oh that smells so good I love garlic but I love the smell of shallots so Ino zucchini and summer squash just cut into neat little coins coins silver dollars and frozen corn and it's frozen roasted corn so this is a great shortcut for any quick and easy supper and any one pan supper for sure okay so I'll stir this around and just give the veggies a little bit of a chance to cook so moving on going to add some tomato paste couple of tablespoons right to the center of the pan and just let that tomato paste kind of fry against the bottom of the pan this has a little bit of heat to it in the form of crushed red pepper flakes that was kind of a lot of heat actually oo yum yum yum I love this too cuz you just kind of build layer upon layer and just it gets better and better with everything you add so a can of tomato sauce and couple of tablespoons of prepared pesto and when I say tablespoon I mean like A4 a cup and and then some chicken stock you can do veggie stock you can do beef stock whatever you happen to have in your pantry this was in my fridge so it's a little bit cold which is good cuz things are getting a little hot in here oh all righty so now I need to bring this sauce to a boil so it can start to thicken a little bit and then I'm going to keep adding stuff until this delicious one pot meal is ready this is looking very very good so next bunch of things to add I've got some torn kale and this is Dinosaur Kale or linto kale whatever you like to call it you were probably wondering when the noi was going to come in so I have a package of prepared noi and this stuff is shelf stable so it doesn't have to be refrigerated which makes it one of my favorite Pantry items in the universe whoa this is going to get full and then you guessed it this amazing sausage oh my gosh wow I may have underestimated the size of my pot it's okay the kill will shrink it's just going to take a couple of minutes bubbling away in this sauce and then just one more addition and you are going to see the most delicious one pot recipe you've seen all morning take a peek Alex you have to get in here and look at how hearty and wonderful this is wow now this is actually an optional ingredient I've got mccrone cheese and you could probably accomplish pretty much the same thing with heavy cream but this just adds a creaminess that is out of this world it's not like an overly creamy dish but it just kind of adds a little bit of softness to the you know heavy tomato sauce so now I need to stir the Mone in until it's totally distributed and then it'll be time to dig in time to take this off of the stove because there's nothing more to add except I thought of something else to add parmesan oh my gosh uhoh it's a little soft M yum all right and then I have some basil leaves and I'll just tear the leaves drop them on rustic simple very quick very easy but this is one of those things that seriously looks like it took you over an hour to make all right what I want to do now is start working on my chicken and dumplings my mom would make these and it would take her all day long it was definitely one of those are We There Yet moments at home and so now what I've done is kind of sped it up just a bit here and uh made it easy for you to do at home with not a lot of processes just a really flavorful poach and broth that we use the liquid of to make our dumplings so just want to get my veggies all good to go here an onion garlic some twine what I'm going to do is I'm going to get the butter down in this pan turn it on really quick uh chop up my onions get them ready for the pan as well I'm going to chop down some of these herbs my garlic it's going to be great for the dumplings and then twine up the rest of the herbs so I can get them into the flavorful broth I'm just getting my herbs all tied up some th sage and parsley and all I need now is a stalk of celery to get into my pot along with the onions and garlic it's going to make a flavorful broth for our chicken and dumplings all right there we go this is all going to get into the pot along with some whole black pepper corns man can I tell you I love pepper there's nothing better than a peppercorn that's cooked for a minute it's a little bit soft you crunch into it and you get a mouthful of fire all right so now to this I'm going to add my chicken it's a whole chicken cut up bone in skin on and I'm going to go ahead and poach it in some chicken stock and water right here in this pot with all of the flavor so everyone gets some dark meat and some white meat it's a happy family meal right here this smells so great let me tell you my mom would work all day on this huge stock pot and we'd smell it and we'd know uh-oh it's chicken and dumplings time tonight let me tell you she'd be done with dinner and flour was all over the place and she was disheveled cuz she'd been working all day on this meal and I say all day now but probably was just a couple of hours as a kid but it just felt like all day all right so I've got my uh Chicken in here I'm going to get some chicken stocked down about six cups are going to go in this is great you know special meal for your family I've shortened it a little bit here and made it something that you can kind of put together in about D 30 45 minutes the rest of my chicken stock in here this is going to be the most flavorful quick broth you've ever made oh man the celery is going to make it nice and light crisp flavor we've got the Peppercorns in there onions and now to my six cups of chicken stock six cups of water what I'm going to do is bring this to a nice boil and poach my chicken up when we get back I'm going to show you how to make dumplings out of this flavorful chicken broth what I want to do now is just kind of pay attention to my uh poach that I've got here remember my little uh herbs that I went ahead and twined up we've got the parsley the sage and the th I'm going to take the those out because I've already gotten the flavor from them and plus look at the color it's not really totally appealing I'm going to get my chicken out as well I love poaching chicken it's fast and plus it soaks up the juices from the broth and so it's going to be flavorful on the inside and flavored by all of the lovely herbs that we put in here along with the onion and the black pepper corn this is going to be great along with some chicken stock as well a little bit of water to help it out and I fish out my uh celery as well well there we go that's it that's all out and good to go what I want to do now is show you how to make these dumplings okay my mom used to take all day like I said to make this but I'm going to shorten it for you because I'm going to be using some water or actually the broth that we just built right there so first things first I want to get uh some flour in here and then I'm going to add in some of the broth from the pot so two cups of flour go in this isn't baking it's totally an eyeball thing and then what I want to do is do a heavy dosing of salt you don't want a dumpling that you can't taste it's just flowery and then remember the herbs that I chopped up earlier we've got a mirror effect we've got the sage the parsley and the thyme that I also wrapped up and put into that broth to make it nice and flavorful and earthy put that in there as well I'm just going to give it a quick little stir and to this I'm going to add this flavor broth that I've already kind of worked for why slave on making a beautiful broth like this and not use it in your actual dumplings so I'm going to go ahead and get some of this broth out there we go don't worry if you get a couple of pepper corns and onions in get my chocolate to the side here because it's all about the dough right now what I want to do is I'm just going to go ahead and build a well in the center I'm going to add in this chicken stock and slowly start to incorporate it what I'm looking for is a moist but firm dough that I can make into a ball and roll out into dumplings TR just rolling this out to about A4 of an inch thickness here and then what I'm going to do is make squares and then out of those squares make triangles so I like to kind of go in and Corner myself off just a bit here so I have some straight lines to work with and let me show you how you make a dumpling with a pizza cutter just kind of go in and make little squares here and then go in and make some lateral moves now my mom used to make these huge huge but I find they cook a lot faster of course when they're small so just kind of go in and make your little triangles that's what I'm going to do now when we get back I'm going to dunk these into that flavorful broth and it's time to eat a meal that didn't take all day to make hey I'm just adding the last of my dumplings into this flavorful broth that we went ahead and poached the chicken in it was bone in skin on chicken that I went ahead and just shred it off of the bone I'm going to get it right back into my pot this is flavored up with the chicken stock and a little bit of water and some black pepper corns to add some bite to it and then I also threw in that big huge bouquet Garney or my tied up herbs and that was the thyme the parsley and the sage I'm just getting all of this back in here together and also don't forget the onions garlic and celery now when you add the dumplings in you want to make sure that your broth is at a rolling boil because all of that activity is going to kind of help separate the dumplings when you put them in you don't want them to stick together and you also don't want to shake off all the flour because the flour is going to help thicken this broth and stock up really nice for you all right just going to get out my chicken and dumplings look at that that's beautiful a nice heaping bowl full this is great for the winter time especially if you have a little bit of a cold makes you feel like you're all loved I'm going to get some of this yeah Mom waited all day m to get her praise for this meal it's amazing chicken and dumplings that don't take all day long they're delicious I'm putting together some cozy comforting dishes that taste like home to us like everything bagel chicken and biscuits this is essentially a saucy Stewie chicken pot pie mixture baked with Buttermilk Biscuits on top that are incrusted in everything bagel seasoning to start with my biscuits I'll combine 3 and A3 cups of allpurpose flour and 1 and 1/2 tbsp of barley malt powder barley malt is one of the things that gives Bagels their faint sweet flavor you could substitute it with a pinch of sugar a tablespoon of baking powder and a teaspoon of baking soda and a teaspoon and a half of kosher salt always together the dry ingredients and then get my butter which is in the fridge so I'll incorporate the butter by Smashing it into little sheets between my fingers the number one rule of biscuits is to keep the butter cold that's what allows you to have a flaky biscuit and I'm working toward a consistency where the butter is around the size of peas okay this butter looks good before I bring the dough oil together I'll toss in some chopped fresh chives it'll be really pretty when the biscuits bake 1 and 1/2 cups of Buttermilk will bring the dough together once this dough comes together I'll stick it in the refrigerator for a little while so that it could firm back up make sure all of the dry ingredients are Incorporated I'll wrap this up and I'll stick this in the fridge while I get going on my filling I'm starting by cooking down all my veggies in some butter it smells heavenly right now cuz I don't only have onions but I've also got leaks for a little bit of a springier alium flavor I'll toss in a garlic clove that's finally chopped and then I'll build my Rue right in with the veggies so I'll sprinkle in 1/4 cup of allpurpose flour I'll stir this in and allow the flour flavor to cook off and now I'll begin to add my liquid so I've got 1 and 1/2 cups each of low sodium chicken stock it's important to do that gradually so that the sauce stays smooth and half and half for that great creaminess I'll finish up the sauce by adding 4 oz of cream cheese I love the tanginess that this will contribute allow this cream cheese to melt and get gooey I'll season this with another couple of pinches of salt and some black pepper I'll get my chicken this is 1 and 1/2 lbs of boneless skinless chicken thigh and I'm going to plop this in I'll actually be cooking the chicken right in this mixture we get this evenly dispersed let me grab my Peas I love the little pops of sweetness that peas bring and they look cute I'm using Frozen but you could also use fresh sprinkle in about a cup and lastly I'll sprinkle in some chopped fresh parsley okay so I'll remove this from the Heat and let it cool slightly while I stamp my biscuits out I'll dust my Surface with some flour and I'll roll this out until it's about 3/4 of an inch thick okay so I'm stamping this out with my circle cutter they're ready for their everything bagel topping it's just poppy seeds sesame seeds dried garlic and onion with a pinch of carow and salt all mixed up but sorbot works too as my glue I'll brush on some half and half I'm not holding back with this I love the crunch I love the flavor so now that these are ready I can transfer them right onto the filling space them out evenly they will puff up and spread a little bit in the oven looking pretty already I'll get this in the oven at 425° for 45 to 50 minutes until the biscuits are golden brown and the mixture is bubbly I'm so excited to eat this I am smelling the garlic from the everything bagel holy buckets it looks gorgeous dazzle with flakey salt I'm so ready to eat this oh yeah that's fantastic I'm going to make jumbalaya please hook up the green and the red bell pepper small dice so jumbalaya is one of to me one of the three main dishes in New Orleans there's gumbo etu and jumbalaya so the differences between the two or the three are so like narrow and small um I would say gumbo is served over rice right it could be sausage Seafood etu again served over rice but usually just Seafood okay and then what I truly love about uh jumbalaya is it's served with the rice in it so the rice Cooks in it it gets that Flavor now there also some things that I kind of break the rules on here uh but that's the great thing about cooking so I'm starting my jumbalaya in this big Dutch oven here and I had some oil down and this is andou sausage so iconic for New Orleans spicy Smokey I just cut it down to rounds got some fat from it and then added a little bit more fat when I pulled them out um to put them on the plate with a slotted spoon and then in I just put in some dark meat chicken so some thighs with the bones removed and cut down to chunks my flavoring is just a little bit of Creole seasoning or Cajun seasoning and that just goes into the pot we're not trying to cook anything completely through we just want to let it hang out and sear so turn everything up really really high and just let that hang and become one one with the seasoning one with the SE yeah yeah also add in the red chili flakes so they can bloom as well now over here with what's happening we've all heard about the miraa we know the trinity in New Orleans which is the base for a lot of their dishes is H white onion celery and green bell pepper but for jumbalaya red bell pepper is also super delicious I've got some thyme here that I just chopped down very nicely and I'm going to get in on my celery Sunny tell me about the seasoning you you put in there it smells so good it's just a Cajun or Creole seasoning you can find it in the seasoning aisle it's going to have paprika garlic um onion powder some thyme um it's just really really salty as well so you have to watch your salt content all right so chicken out andou sausage out I'm going to start just really flavoring things up we're going to go in with our Trinity start with our onions I'll take that oh there she go our bell pepper very serious over okay Chef come on with it come on Alex Che we Chef in the zone celery going in compost compost it compost I'm going to give that a little toot when you put it in there be with my th okay and then move this around with a nice pinch of salt remembering that fre old seasoning cast salt already a little bit of help goes in I mean how could this not be good right let tell you something I moved to New Orleans because of the food yeah that's it yeah that's it so you see how the pot shut up a little bit and that's going to cook some and as everything gets nice and tender I'm going to add in some crushed tomato that's traditional okay you can crush them yourself if you like as well but usually Fila powder is used in gumbo but I love it in Jambalaya you put Fila powder in your jambalaya I do I do um it's floral it's light it also has a little bit of a thickening agent um which is going to help we don't really need need need it because the rice and the starch and the rice is going to help what is f powder so Fel powder is from the sassa right and they just dry it and they grind it up and if you've ever smelled a sassa fras it's just it's got a really light flavor it's got a light scent kind of like sumac Vibes all right so obviously you see this is going to cook down a bit and when it's cooked down a bit it's going to look like this and take a look at that deep rich red colors just I mean the waft is everything and now we're going to start adding in the liquid this is chicken stock base you can add chicken stock if you like but I just love the base let me get a spoon it stays in my fridge they've got this company has like roasted garlic seafood B it's got beef base yeah yeah so get that in there now remember this is also pretty salty got be careful all right so you've got to add a good amount of water to that got be careful okay by the way the pot shut up and so did we as soon as you open it know I got look at that how rich it is a Saito kind of thing going on I mean this is a dish I mean everyone knows Creole food is an amalgamation of like French and Spanish and African and so you can say to yourself this is kind of like um paa Vibes but in a dutch oven so then we're going to add our back in all that greas there yeah and then some rice you can use long grain short grain whatever wash your rice Sunny um not for this because you do want that starch to hang out so yeah put it all in there cuz it really does impart a little bit of thickening to our jumbalaya oh come on now oh look at that now at the very end I like to add in my shrimp okay and then just give it a nice stir and let the heat of the pot you can turn the pot off by now what type of shrimp are those large like so maybe 20 25 no I leave them whole oh wow and then I just cover it back up after I hit it with a nice Shake of hot sauce Louisiana hot sauce There is a quintessential Louisiana brand I'm not using that now I'm using a Texas Brand a little bit of homage to Texas which took on a lot of louisianans after they had a hurricane they all traveled on I 10 and found a new home and then I'm just going to close this back up and let the ambient heat cook our shrimp give it a nice last stir and get it into our bowl and then right at the very end I still love to add a little bit of Fela powder oh there F powder yep some is this a portion scallions yeah that's this is a sunny portion sorry that's an entire portion jees you got to do the taste look at this beautiful chicken oh look at him eating it up look at this guy well it's spicy in the very best way stick to your ribs in the very best way yeah cuz it's so comforting it's warming the spice is perfect and I'm stunned at how perfect the chicken cooked one pan creamy cheesy or zoto so I've already got a pan going with some olive oil sliced shallots and rosemary the shallots are already starting to turn brown so I'm going to add some orzo pasta right into the pan yum and some garlic scrape it right in and then I'm going to stir it around and make sure the orzo pasta is totally coated in this delicious shallot Rosemary garlic oil mixture I think I included everything there or zoto is an amazing dish and it's very much like Roto which is made with our Oreo rice but orzotto is made with pasta but it follows the same basic procedure you cook it for a little while with some aromatics start adding broth add it gradually and the pasta will slowly absorb the liquid and the whole finished product is just creamy and dreamy it takes less time than Roto T so it's kind of a quick solution if you're a big rotto fan this menu I'm making is going to have a Mediterranean spin which I know my sister loves I know Paige loves I know Alex loves we don't know about stew and Macio cuz they're not here right now yeah we'll just let them who cares we'll let them go get a burger and fries okay so I've been kind of cooking the orzo pasta with the other ingredients and I'm going to add half a cup of white wine M oh my gosh that was by far the most exciting thing that's happened to me all day and then I have some simmering broth it's vegetable broth but you can use chicken broth seafood broth whatever broth floats your boat that's a very weird phrase and then I'm going to turn the heat down it's really hot so it already kind of got off to a good start with cooking okay now I'm going to stir this and cook it slowly for about 5 minutes and then I'll bring in the creamy cheesiness but I promised okay I'm going to add a little bit of salt and pepper and then a little bit of pinched a little bit of crushed red pepper flakes and then I'm going to turn the heat way down and add the creamy cheesiness so first things first cream hello and some I call Supermarket mozzarella it's not fresh mozzarella it's like Supermarket mozzarella and then half a container of mascaron cheese oo but you could use cream cheese if that's what you have in your fridge and basically any cheese combination works and then about 4 oz of goat cheese and I'm going to kind of break it up as it goes in honestly or zoto is one of those dishes that you can just pull out whatever you have in your fridge that you want to get rid of all right so I also have some fried tomatoes amazing flavor they're chopped really fine and kale M so it kind of has you can tell yourself it's healthy cuz it has all of that it's basically a salad yeah it's a salad with a little bit of pasta okay so I'm going to fold look at that cheese holy mackerel go you weren't kidding about creamy cheesy I was not kidding when I make promises I keep them so I'm going to stir stir this around and let it continue cooking just for about 3 to 4 minutes this is going to be amazing easy white bean and mushroom soup this is very simple I've got some store-bought shortcuts I want to show you just really first starting with this if you have not gone to your freezer section and done some reinvigoration of your freezer section at home you are missing out because you can get these sauteed and chopped onion pods you keep them in your freezer they stay good for a long time time they also have garlic ginger and some people have even found some herb ones in the freezer section so just a couple of the little pods could just plunk them out and they'll just kind of meld into everything matter fact I'll add three um and then to that I've got some mushrooms I just buy a couple of those little packs of wild mushrooms that are like mixed together and I chop them down so get that in no salt yet okay because the salt's going to make it wet and then they're going to steam more than they will actually Brown and cook so just get them in there I've got my pot on like a nice medium high so they can actually get a little bit of color on them turn it up a little bit and then to the pot some th it's like Nature's Own bouquet Garney it's it's already attached and ready to go just get that in there all right now mushrooms soak up a lot of fat so you might have to add a little bit of extra olive oil but not too much and let it just kind of hang out for a second all right you're just going to wait until everything Cooks down kind of like spinach mushroom has lots of water in it so you'll start with a big pile and then everything Cooks down to a small little bit this is going to bring a lot of color actually as well to our soup okay to that I love these little tiny sweet peppers you can find them they have like yellow orange and red and all just one big bag sometimes I'll just put them on the grill and Char them and serve them right next to a steak uh but they're also very good in this just chop them down they're not spicy at all at a nice sweet note and color it's beautiful uh then a can of white beans calini just rinse them off get them in there okay A little bit of flavor here I love adding grained Dijon mustard to gravies and sauces so why not a soup it just adds a little bit of funk a little zip as well to that vegetable stock wait a minute am I going vegan slow down but listen I haven't added any animal fat yet so this is good for the vegans My Vegan crew as you add this in remember that bottom that was nice and golden brown and crusted from sautéing our mushrooms just make sure you use your spoon to get in there and just really move things around now to this I like to add some salt okay because remember we did not salt the mushrooms the vegetable stock is going to come with its own kind of salt and then tons of black pepper just go you know go crazy and add extra flavor but look at this all right so I'm going to cover this it's going to simmer for about 20 minutes that's just going to allow all of the flavors to really come together and then we're going to add in Katie's favorite ingredient you already know what it is all right let me get the soup up here now remember cover it up low simmer and look at this how it reduces and just really it is showing off beautiful now remember that sprig that we put in in the very beginning that sprig of time with personality just go in and get it out all right as it's nice and bubbly here um another store bought short cut I love is going into the produce section and getting that bag of already pre-shredded kale uh I further chop it down because I don't want the strings I always think about getting things onto my spoon when I make a soup I want everything to be on the spoon at the same time so in my mind I want some bean I want some mushroom and I want some kale to all be on the spoon so chopping down the pre-red will really get you to the Finish Line there this only takes about 60 seconds to wilt in kind of has the curb appeal of an Italian wedding soup there you have it it is my white bean and mushroom soup so simple so much personality so much color come on start your dinner party off right look at that now at the very end I like to come in and just kind of make it nice and bright it's really going to marry well with that mustard that you put in there it's G to really make the mustard kind of talk and what I'm talking about is a quick little Spritz of lemon so you can kind of serve a little lemon wedge with it and allow everyone to be interactive with their soup and then a little hot sauce it is summertime and that means it's time to haul hay and that's exactly what lad and the crew are going to do today so I am going to get dinner ready so that when they're all finished hauling hay they can just come home settle in and Chow Down now first step on the menu is delicious chunky chili and it actually takes about 3 hours to cook and that's why I'm starting it now before the hay hauling even begins so before you got here I tossed a bunch of chuck roast in seasoned flour I just seasoned it with salt and pepper I also seasoned the chuck of chuck roast okay so I'm going to crank up the heat just a little bit and look at how Brown this is Paige how beautiful can you see into the pot Yum Yum Yum now I'm going to add all the stuff that turns beef into chili so two cans of tomato sauce most of the time whenever I make chili here on drum and ranch I use ground beef and it's more of a ground beef based hamburger chili but I love chunky chili It's almost like stew when you finish it up but it has all the not to be confused with that stew stew so I've got the beef and tomato sauce in the pan and I'm going to add two tablespoons of regular chili powder and then for a little spin ooh a tablespoon of ancho chili powder which is really just unmistakable I love the flavor of ancho chili powder and I like combining regular chili powder with ancho and then get the tablespoon in there tablespoon of cumin okay and then some minced garlic goes in look at that doesn't look good and I'll stir it around and then I've got to add about a cup of water just to help make the chili nice and Saucy my girls grew up hauling hay on this Ranch would you girls say it's one of your favorite activities or one of your least favorite least favorite think it's down there on the Le I never understood why they don't love it because you really just stay in a truck and just haul back and forth but because you're pulling thousands of pounds of hay that's so true so I added a cup of water and some salt and pepper and now yes you need a bottle open do I I guess I don't drink drink beer I do need a bottle opener shoot hold on yeah would you please thank you Alex D Addis okay so next thing I'm going to add is a bottle of beer I just like beer and chili and I like beer and chili so do your dashes of hot sauce because I get nervous if I don't add hot sauce to everything I make and then the last thing I'm going to go ahead and add the beans now and I've got a can each of pinto beans black beans and kidney beans and I have them in these little strainers because I poured them out of the cans and I rinsed them and drained them you know that some people don't like beans in their chili I know beans and chili is a controversial thing but I like to add now they're going to get kind of mushy and all mixed in but that doesn't matter to me all right so now all I've got to do is put the lid on the pot turn it down to a simmer and let it cook for 3 hours see you back then okay over to the hay hauling the hay is already been cut Rak and bailed so lad enlisted Todd to help him haul it they'll pick up the big Bales with the tractor load them onto trailers haul them to a different part of the ranch and they'll be all ready to feed the cattle this this winter this is the job where you got to kind of know what you're doing it's not bad once you get to hang out I'm going to take some cookies in a little while and they are going to be excited cuz they are their favorite cowboy Josh and his little boy T are joining them later but for now it's just lad and Todd all right the hay operation has officially begun and this chili is officially done that was kind of a rhyme look at this can you believe this is what the chili looks like after 3 hours every now and then I checked it and gave it a stir and made sure it wasn't getting too dry if you feel like it is you can always just splash in more hot water it looks perfect now I'm going to actually let it cool before I put it in the fridge but I know someone here really wants to taste this who is it Paige Paige is hungry her mouth is watering so look at this Alex now I made some condiments to go with the chili Chipotle cream which is nothing more than chipotle peppers a little bit of Adobo sauce and sour cream I'm going to put it right on top along with a little bit of red onion and a little bit of cilantro I think we should taste it together oh my gosh I'm so excited me too this looks amazing oh my gosh that's so good so I'm going to chill the little condiments on a tray cover this up these will be ready to go and then I'm going to let the chili cool down completely and then I'll put it in the fridge the main course for dinner is already done I love it when that happens crab and peoto an incredibly comforting one pop meal so I'm making crab and PE Roto and it starts with 6 to 8 cups of simmering Seafood stock then next I have 2 tbsp of butter and 2 tspoons of oil and then melt it in big Dutch oven make the whole thing in this one pot I'm going to add some flavorings half a cup of fennel finely diced want this risort to have great flavor half a cup of shallots finely diced and I love fennel with seafood and these are pablano peppers they're kind of warm they're not really really hot and just give of a little K you don't want boring risoto I'm just going to sauté these for about 5 minutes perfectly cooked okay now I'm going to add two tpoon of garlic Cho minced garlic you don't want to cook the garlic too much so it'll burn so I'm just going to cook it for a minute I'm going to add half a teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes give it a little heat along with the pablano peppers half a teaspoon of saffron saffron's critical for risoto I love saffron I don't know what it is about saffron but I really miss it when it's not in risoto it's just got a heat it's got this really subtle flavor but it's really important I love it and it makes risoto yellow just gorgeous okay next is the time for my garden so I'm just going to put it in right over the pot one teaspoon of fresh thy leaves and just strip the leaves and just run your finger right down the stem end up with fresh thyme okay next is the rice so it's Italian or Boro rice really need to use that I'm just going to put a cup and a half in and this is the key you want to stir it and make sure each grain of rice is coated with butter this smells amazing Au Boro rice really has the right amount of starchiness for risotto it's got a cream in this when you're done that really is perfect for this dish next is the wine can't make risotto without wine so I need one cup of white wine I'm using a good Italian wine Peno ggio and just pour it in okay just give that a stir just going to cook this until the wine evaporates until so the flavor is absorbed into the rice okay next little bit of a process add stock stir and repeat so I'll keep stirring for 5 minutes then add a ladle full of stock my tip is to use a half2 cup Ladle so it makes it easy to see how much you add then keep stirring and when the seafood stock is almost completely absorbed add another half a cup of stock and just keep going adding stock until the rice is alente it takes about 25 minutes okay now I'm going to add a little creme fresh it's going to give it a little richness so half a cup of creme fresh just always tastes better just stir that in okay next are salt and pepper about two teaspoons of salt want to make sure it's really well seasoned as everything else and about a teaspoon of pepper okay next to the crab meat so I have about a pound of lump crab meat and it's not the shredded kind it's the you know big pieces I mean you can use the shredded kind but you won't really taste it as much it'll flavor it but it won't really have the bite that this does it's particularly good it's a little more expensive but it's really worth it just put that in along with peas I use frozen defrosted peas they're perfectly good if peas are in season they're even better but it just takes so much time and frozen peas are really pretty good and they're already blanched how good does this look for dinner entire dinner in one pot okay now I need a big balll so I can taste it I mean the key to this is just make sure that the rice is cooked through it's not mushy it's El Dante and there's still a lot of creaminess in the sauce and see how it's it's not thick it's really creamy and then at the end I'd love to add a few things just at the top some fresh chives nice thing about chives is they're always in season and if they're not in the garden you can get them at the store just little chives on top give it a little oniony freshness and a little lemon zest which I like with seafood you can put it in the pot or on each Bowl but there's no cheese in this at all Italians never put cheese with seafood Jeffrey once was at a restaurant in LA and asked for Parmesan for a seafood pasta and the waiter just went like no you can't have it we still laugh about that oh this looks incredible see how creamy it is and really taste all the flavors the crab meat and the peppers fennel saffron this is one big bowl of comfort pot roast so I have my one pot I oil it up I'm salting this a lot hey baby you're hot my chuck roast oh yeah that's what I'm talking about that's brown food ditch the fat and add a little bit more olive oil couple of onions a couple ribs of celery some garlic salt cracked red Brown it some more let's thicken this up a little we're going to add a little tomato paste we Brown that as well and then toss a little vinegar in there add in a little thyme bundle some bay leaves and a couple of star anas all right so I'm going to add in some water I'm going to put my meat back in the pan and then I cover it about half to 2/3 of the way couple strips of orange zust put a lid on it we're going to put this guy in the oven in an hour I take out my pot roast M that smells good let's turn this baby over I put the lid back on and toss it in the oven for another hour so I have some butternut squash that I've peeled and diced I have some Jerusalem artichokes that are going in there we put some dried figs in there I'm going to stir these guys in we're going to toss this back in the oven for about half an hour oh let's come down the home stretch I'm going to toss this back in the oven for 20 more minutes with no lid on what happens is the liquid Cooks down it's warm it's brown it's delicious red wine Brae short ribs fall off the bone where is the meat in the pot where is the bone on the spoon so I have 5 lbs of bone in short ribs in a bowl here I'm just going to add liberal salt and pepper cuz this is a lot of short rib a half a cup of flour and the flour is going to help get this really nice Brown sear and I'm only using enough flour to coat the short ribs we're not deep frying them just going to sear all sides of my beef ribs creating a nice little crispy layer what's left over in the pot is the start of your layers of flavor while that's searing I'm going to get my veggies ready so I have carrots celery onion and garlic I'm just going to put this in my food processor everything is going to break down in that oil and it's going to really enhance the flavor of those short ribs I'm adding two stocks of celery one one large white onion and three cloves of garlic so I'm processing my carrots onion and celery make sure all those chunks of veggies are broken down all right that's great let me turn my short ribs let them cook on the other side look how Brown they are there's some crust down there from the flour and oil that's where all of the flavor lies they are done M they smell incredible just going to add my sauté veggies right to the mixture in the pot with the oil left over from the short ribs I'm just cooking the veggies until they become nice and soft and some of that uh liquid from the veggies Cooks out now I'm going to add some tomato paste the tomato paste is going to help it thicken up as well now I'm going to add some flour and that's going to help the brazing liquid get just a little bit more thick pinch of Italian seasoning that's oregano parsley thyme 2 cups of beef broth the beef broth is really going to enhance that flavor the fun part one bottle dry red wine I'm going to reduce this wine by half and then add in my beef ribs and I'm going to add a bay leaf all right I'm going to let this Reduce by half so that should take about 10 to 15 minutes I'm going to let this bake at 300 for 3 hours to get that meat super super tender and when it comes out it will fall off the bone this is my simple perfect chili and it really is just that it's a total cinch to make I just throw 2 lbs of ground beef into a large pot with two cloves of chopped garlic then cook it till it Browns while that's happening I mix up the herbs and spices 1 teaspoon of ground oregano 1 teaspoon of ground cumin A4 a teaspoon of cayenne pepper 2 tspoon of chili powder and 1 teaspoon of salt then I add an 8 oz can of tomato sauce the spices and give it a good stir put on the lid and simmer it for an hour after that I grab 1/4 cup of Masa mixed with half a cup of water Masa is cornflour and it's thickens the chili and adds a great corn flavor after an hour I dump the Masa mixture into the chili stir it together well then let it simmer for a few more minutes then it's done simply perfect okay I just snipped the bags open dinner doesn't get much easier than this does it and I'm just going to place them in the pot and then just pour some water over the top and then heat them up and the water will eventually evaporate and it'll be perfect all right the Chili's thawed I'll just throw the beans in I'm using kidney beans and pinto beans but you can use whatever beans you have in your pantry and I'm just going to let this simmer gently until they get back for moving cattle around and then I've got some fixen ready for the chili the great thing about these fixen is they're all pantry and fridge standbys I've got tortilla chips lime wedges red onion and of course grated cheese you got to have lots and lots of grated cheese when you serve chili so I'm going to whip up some yummy beef stew with cheddar cheese grits for hin and that way she won't have to think about dinner at all I've got two pots going cuz I'm actually going to make one for hent family and one for mine I'm going to Brown the meat first I got a chuck roast and cut it into big cubes I actually haven't told hent that I'm making dinner for her I'm just going to run in and pick up Alex like I always do and then spring dinner on her at the last minute okay the meat's nice and brown so I'm going to go ahead and take it out of the pot it's by no means cooked it looks like it is but in the stew it's going to simmer for a couple of hours and this chuck roast gets so tender I'm going to add an onion to each pot the pot is nice and brown it has a lot of bits from the meat in there and then I'm going to add about three cloves of chopped garlic to each pot all right now I'll just stir the onions and garlic around a bit the pots are so hot they're almost translucent already so I really just need to cook them for about a minute so I'm just going to take a break and grab a couple beers it's been a long day just kidding I'm going to add the beer to the stew this gives the stew really great flavor so I'm just going to add 32 oz of beef stock to each pot now to the pots I'm just going to add a few dashes of Worster sure Worster sure always adds a nice savoriness little bit of richness then I'm just going to add a little bit of tomato paste to each pot gives a little bit of a Tang gives the sauce a little little bit of richness so good and I like to add paprika to the stew also it gives it a great flavor but it also kind of helps with the color and then I'll add a little bit of sugar to each pot now the last thing I need to do in this stage is add the meat into the pot so I'll just slide half into this one and half into this one okay now I'll just stir the meat in make sure it's all combined and then I'll all I need to do now is be patient I'm going to put the lids on the pot turn the heat down let the beef stew simmer for about an hour and a half and then I'll put the root vegetables in let it simmer until it's done and hyn is going to be so happy all right the beef Stew's been simmering away for about an hour and a half and now it's time to add in the vegetables I got to tell you this smells so delicious I smell everything the beer the broth now I've got two carrots for each pot and then I also have two parsnips for each pot and then I have one turnip and that's enough for both pots so about a half a turnup per pot now I didn't want to add these at the beginning because the vegetables would be pretty much disintegrated so this is the perfect time to add them let them simmer for about 30 minutes till the veggies are nice and tender the last thing I'm going to do is thicken up the cooking liquid a little bit I'll drizzle in some beef stock into 3 tablespoons of flour and I just want to make a really really smooth pretty thin paste now I'll just add a little bit into each pot and then it's going to keep bubbling just for about 10 minutes or so and it's going to make the stew just perfect and Rich and thick I'm going to make some split peas soup okay 2 tablespoons of olive oil and a cup of onions about one yellow onion I was put the onions in first cuz they don't burn as easily as the garlic just mint the garlic finally you know there's no real secret to mincing the only thing you want to do is hold the tip down with one finger and then move the handle up and down otherwise the knife jumps all over the board and it's hard to control okay Garlic's ready okay now some flavors definitely need salt and pepper 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of salt I use cusher salt one teaspoon of pepper and half a teaspoon of dried oregano can't get that and just stir that around let that cook with the onions wonder how TR is getting along with this assignment sounds like a secret mission I think the onions and garlic are done hope Tia likes this soup it's nice to have something that's actually delicious and I'm good for you I'm going to add two cups of carrots chopped like big chunks you want this to be really good hearty Chunky Soup okay and a cup of diced potatoes nice thing about the potatoes is you don't have to peel them you don't have to bother peel tastes just fine it's going to cook for a long time I don't want to peel anything that small anyway okay right into the pot eight cups of good chicken stock this is homemade if you can make homemade it's really worth it but if not you can find a good chicken stock in the grocery store okay and now we're going to put in split peas so going to use about a pound of split peas which is about two cups of split peas total but I'm going to only put in about 1 and 1/2 cups to start with so it makes a really thick soup and then I put the rest in right it about halfway through the cooking so you get really chunky just a bite of split peas also so I'm just going to let this simmer for about 40 minutes m this is going to be a really nice soup to come home to so split pea soup is half done looking pretty good so at this point halfway through the cooking I'm going to add another half a cup of split cheese and what that does is then the split peas that are already in there get really soft and make the soup really rich and thick and then these split peas will cook a little less so they'll have a little bit of bite to them which is really good I like both textures continue to let the soup simmer and just cook it for another 40 minutes it's going to be rich and delicious and so good for you today we're going to make quickie chicken ministr soup this is a super easy soup to make it's hearty it's got lots of flavors ministr doesn't normally have chicken in it but we're going to add a little bit and we're using chicken breasts which actually cook more quickly you can also use thighs if you want but it'll just take a little bit longer to cook and sometimes if I want to bump up this soup even a little bit more I'll add some cook beans or chickpeas for added protein so let's get cooking the first thing we're going to do is get all our vegetables together and cooking now ministr in Italian means a big soup right so this is a big soup filled with lots of different vegetables I'm going to start with some carrots I just feel like every Minon I've ever had has had carrots as part of the ingredient list right got that natural sweetness from them got great texture we're definitely peeling them we're going a little bit fancy here right and here's the thing about peeling them I love a a little square peeler and I like this one it's pretty cheap which I like you just want to peel straight down in a single motion you notice how I'm peeling away from myself and I'm just holding the carrot on the end okay so those are peeled always have a little scrap Bowl when you're cooking so you can keep your work surface right in front of you totally clear clear cutting board clear head good cooking okay just take the little ends off right and just with a chef's knife you notice I'm just holding the two carrots together we're going to cut them at the same time and I'm holding them down and I'm squeezing them so that they actually stay together I'm just going to cut thin rounds between a quarter and an eigh of an inch and you notice I'm cutting with this part of the knife right close to the heel I guess and just cutting these rounds of carrots I really think the texture of the carrots is essential for the ministr we want to go all the way up to the top okay so I've got a medium siiz heavy bottom pot we're just going to cook this Stove Top and we're going to start with 3 tablespoons of olive oil and as we cut the vegetables we'll drop them in so we start with our carrots two carrots cut into rounds add a pinch of salt soften them get them to start giving up their water next up scallions I've got six scallions here and we're going to use the whole thing right because we don't have any onions or shallots in this those are longer cooking and this is a quickie ministr so you'll notice all our vegetables don't take long to cook just cut it into thin rounds as thin as you can get I like to use the unsharp edge to gather up almost like a a broom sweeping the board and dropping those scallions right in with those carrots and you'll notice also that by dragging the unsharp knife along the board we don't dull our blade more quickly right cut sweet okay next up three large cloves of garlic and you know this is sort of a rustic soup so where I might normally mince or grade or dice the garlic I'm just going to cut it into thin rounds you don't want too too thick with the garlic get as thin as you can and I'm going to sweep right up into the pot with the garlic I'm going add another pinch of salt salt helps the vegetables to give up their water makes them soften more quickly makes them taste good stir and smell this start to come together and I love this cuz we kind of build it as we go right there's not a dull moment here scrape down the sides make sure the vegetables aren't sticking too much the Heat's kind of mediumish medium low nice and easy we've got a half a pound of white mushrooms don't tell anybody I told you this is our special Food Network kitchen secret just run them underwater to wash off any serious excess dirt and do that right before you cook them and that way they're not sitting around and sponging up that water with nowhere to go the water will cook back out when you cook the mushrooms so here we're just going to quarter the mushrooms the mushrooms are kind of meaty in this recipe we don't want to slice them kind of thin you want to bite into kind of a wedge of mushroom and it's nice that all the vegetables are cut differently so when you're eating the soup it feels like a lot of different things cuz it is right in there look at that smells so good to that we're going to add one teaspoon of dry oregano now you can also use fresh oregano if you like but if you are going to use fresh oregano use a little bit less once all the vegetables are in here together you can turn up the heat a little bit you'll see that as the mushrooms cook they really watery and they're going to release a good amount of liquid you want to get that out of there as fast as possible smells good right another tiny pinch of salt okay so at this point we're going to let these vegetables cook another 8 to 10 minutes until they're nice and tender and delicious and when we come back we're going to add the chicken stock okay so once our vegetables have cooked a little bit more and they're getting nice and tender they're giving up all that water and they're super tasty we're ready to add our chicken stock we're going to add three cups of stock right to the pot now I have often made a ministr by the way with water but since we're not cooking this soup very long we want to give ourselves a little Ace in the Hole and start with stock that way there's some buil-in flavor to bring us to the Finish Line more quickly once you put the stock in turn the heat up a little bit right we always want a boil stock when we use it and we're also going to add 14 oz of crushed tomato smells good so you see we have a little balance here between the chicken stock and the chicken meat that we're going to introduce on one side of the ring and then on the other side the Tomato the crushed tomato and all those vegetables it's kind of nice it's a a sort of meaty Riff on a ministr I've got here four chicken breasts skinless boneless about 6 oz each and essentially we're going to poach the chicken in the soup that's going to give it tons of flavor then we're going to just pull the meat out pull it apart and put it back in at the end I'm going to add a tiny pinch of salt to the soup and more importantly we are also going to season our chicken before we add it to the soup so spread them out so they're all in a single layer and just salt them a little bit it's nice to Salt the meat before we add it to the broth so that the chicken is already set to be super flavorful and do this with the tongs instead of your hands so you don't have to do so much breaking for hand washing and whatever else salt on both sides and we have 3/4 cup of raw elbow macaroni um I love cooking the pasta right in the soup the beautiful starches from the pasta as it cooks are also going to add body to our soup so this soup is really the sum of its parts right it gets the benefit of the flavor of the chicken being poached right in the liquid and the pasta cooking in the liquid too it's it's like a one poot situation that I love and fun and easy so once our soup has come back up to a little bit of a simmer we're just going to drop those chicken breasts right in there you see now we're not high heat boiling this it's nice and easy right we don't want to boil the meat right because there's no fat on a chicken breast there's no skin there's nowhere to hide this is like a piece of meat that just has to be very carefully cooked right so we put those four chicken breasts submerged completely in the liquid and our 3/4 cup of elbow macaroni right in there raw so this has just become our vessel for cooking our chicken and cooking our pasta and we don't have five pots and pans on the stove and it's all going to happen pretty quickly that's the quickie chicken ministr so this is going to cook for 8 to 10 minutes then we'll meet back here slice our chicken and eat our soup okay so this soup kind of comes with its own buil-in markers for when it's done you can just look around and find a piece of that elbow macaroni that we added in and see if it's cooked and also most importantly that the chicken is cooked once it's cooked through we can just take those chicken breasts back out you see this is kind of simmering it's not boiling but it's on a nice simmer and that chicken is piping hot don't worry about if there's a few little bits of vegetabl when you take the chicken out we can put that back in the soup this is easiest with a slotted spoon though so you don't take too much with you we're actually going to shut the soup off and break up the chicken so the soup has a minute to rest while we're breaking the chicken meat and just putting it back in we want a little bit of the texture for the chicken in the Minon cuz it's it's an unusual thing to find in what is traditionally just a vegetable soup but it makes it more like a meal I think and then we just literally drop that chicken right back in the soup the soup is been simmering with the chicken in it right and now we're kind of letting it cool a little bit it's actually a surprising little thing we often talk about letting meat have a minute before we eat it you know to rest but it's nice also for things like soups and sauces to have a few minutes to get just that a little bit cooler right and a little bit more kind of buttoned up the soup kind of stopped simmering stirred that chicken back in just mix it back into the liquid and just before you serve it cuz here we are take a tiny Taste of the broth just to make sure the seasoning is on point and then we're ready to serve it up get a nice Ladle full of the pasta the vegetables M it's making me hungry now you have four whole chicken breasts cooked in this soup and you'll really see the benefit of cooking the meat right in the broth with the stock it just makes a a quicky soup that tastes like it cooked for a lot longer than it did and no one needs to know by the way you have this you cook this and you invite your friends over and you say oh my God this took me all afternoon to make this I'm exhausted right so there's our soup sprinkle of parm especially make sure the parm falls in the broth so it gives it a little body makes it look all that more inviting okay you can tear the basil I'm not a big Chopper of Basil cuz it just you know it gets discolored from the metal of the knife fold a few you can also stir all the cheese and basil right into the pot of soup and just put it right on the table if you like that better or you can get a little cheffy and fancy with yourself and do it bit by bit you know my whole childhood when my mom would eat something good she would say if it was good and I and I thought it's so annoying and here I am as an adult doing the exact same thing we are our parents in the best wayI am making my sausage squash bean and charred soup which is so comforting and Hearty it is sure to satisfy all the farmers and their spouses to the core and it's all built in one pot I'm starting with a pound of spicy Italian sausage which is such a great shortcut to more flavor so I'll Brown this sausage over medium high heat as I break it up with the spoon oh it smells so good already I'm smelling the fennel there's a lot of red pepper in this sausage I like an extra spicy Italian sausage all right I'm ready for my veggies I have chopped yellow onion celery and butternut squash I'll toss these all in I'll add a good couple of pinches of salt to draw the moisture out of these veggies and help them soften quicker I'll stir these around bathe these veggies in the sausage fats and allow them to soften for about 5 to 8 minutes as the veggies finish up softening I'll T in some fresh Rosemary some garlic and a couple of bay leaves to infuse the soup with herbiness so whenever I add garlic to a soup like this I have my liquids standing by to add as soon as the garlic starts smelling good because then when you add the liquids kind of stops that cooking of the garlic I'll pour in a can of whole peeled tomatoes and then break them up with my spoon spoon and then some beans a can of chickpeas and a can of calini beans that have been rinsed and drained they add such great creaminess and now I'll bring it together with a quart of low sodium chicken stock and I'm using low sodium just to make sure that I'm not over salting it and six cups of water it's a full pot I'll stir this around and bring it to a boil and then reduce to a simmer and allow this to cook for about 25 minutes until the squash is tender I'm ready to be cozy my soup is almost done simmering I'm going to finish it up with a tile of Swiss chard because the bitterness it's a nice bright moment in an otherwise very hearty soup I'm just removing the stems they're a little bit too tough I'll feed them to the chickens and then I'll roll up these leaves and chop them into pretty skinny ribbons that'll be easy to eat when here spooning up the soup all the warm colors in this soup between the squash and the tomatoes and the sausage they need something green my favorite color okay I'll pile this in I like this kind of balance a little bit of sausage a lot of greens it's cooking down already yum I'll season with a little more salt and some black pepper okay looks gorgeous to me now this absolutely needs sourdough for dunking and I happen to have some toasting in my oven right now I'll Ladle up a bowl I'll pile it high so that the good stuff Peaks out I'll finish with a tiny drizzle of olive oil a black pepper the bread is basically the spoon in this scenario a spoon that can also soak up soup that is one cozy soup cheesy sausage one pot Yi I cooked some crumbled Italian sausage and it's got some beautiful fat left in the pan so I'm going to set this aside and I'll add it back into the dish later so to this pan I'm going to add some shallot and garlic all right oh that smells so good I love garlic but I love the smell of shallots so Ino zucchini and summer squash just cut into neat little coins coins silver dollars and frozen corn and it's frozen roasted corn so this is a great shortcut for any quick and easy supper and any one pan supper for sure okay so I'll stir this around and just give the veggies a little bit of a chance to cook so moving on going to add some tomato paste couple of tablespoons right to the center of the pan and just let that tomato paste kind of fry against the bottom of the pan this has a little bit of heat to it in the form of crushed red pepper flakes that was kind of a lot of heat actually oo yum yum yum I love this too cuz you just kind of build layer upon layer and just it gets better and better with everything you add so a can of tomato sauce and couple of tablespoons of prepared pesto and when I say tablespoon I mean like A4 a cup and and then some chicken stock you can do veggie stock you can do beef stock whatever you happen to have in your pantry this was in my fridge so it's a little bit cold which is good cuz things are getting a little hot in here oh all righty so now I need to bring this sauce to a boil so it can start to thicken a little bit and then I'm going to keep adding stuff until this delicious one pot meal is ready this is looking very very good so next bunch of things to add I've got some torn kale and this is Dinosaur Kale or linto kale whatever you like to call it you were probably wondering when the noi was going to come in so I have a package of prepared noi and this stuff is shelf stable so it doesn't have to be refrigerated which makes it one of my favorite Pantry items in the universe whoa this is going to get full and then you guessed it this amazing sausage oh my gosh wow I may have underestimated the size of my pot it's okay the kill will shrink it's just going to take a couple of minutes bubbling away in this sauce and then just one more addition and you are going to see the most delicious one pot recipe you've seen all morning take a peek Alex you have to get in here and look at how hearty and wonderful this is wow now this is actually an optional ingredient I've got mccrone cheese and you could probably accomplish pretty much the same thing with heavy cream but this just adds a creaminess that is out of this world it's not like an overly creamy dish but it just kind of adds a little bit of softness to the you know heavy tomato sauce so now I need to stir the Mone in until it's totally distributed and then it'll be time to dig in time to take this off of the stove because there's nothing more to add except I thought of something else to add parmesan oh my gosh uhoh it's a little soft M yum all right and then I have some basil leaves and I'll just tear the leaves drop them on rustic simple very quick very easy but this is one of those things that seriously looks like it took you over an hour to make all right what I want to do now is start working on my chicken and dumplings my mom would make these and it would take her all day long it was definitely one of those are We There Yet moments at home and so now what I've done is kind of sped it up just a bit here and uh made it easy for you to do at home with not a lot of processes just a really flavorful poach and broth that we use the liquid of to make our dumplings so just want to get my veggies all good to go here an onion garlic some twine what I'm going to do is I'm going to get the butter down in this pan turn it on really quick uh chop up my onions get them ready for the pan as well I'm going to chop down some of these herbs my garlic it's going to be great for the dumplings and then twine up the rest of the herbs so I can get them into the flavorful broth I'm just getting my herbs all tied up some th sage and parsley and all I need now is a stalk of celery to get into my pot along with the onions and garlic it's going to make a flavorful broth for our chicken and dumplings all right there we go this is all going to get into the pot along with some whole black pepper corns man can I tell you I love pepper there's nothing better than a peppercorn that's cooked for a minute it's a little bit soft you crunch into it and you get a mouthful of fire all right so now to this I'm going to add my chicken it's a whole chicken cut up bone in skin on and I'm going to go ahead and poach it in some chicken stock and water right here in this pot with all of the flavor so everyone gets some dark meat and some white meat it's a happy family meal right here this smells so great let me tell you my mom would work all day on this huge stock pot and we'd smell it and we'd know uh-oh it's chicken and dumplings time tonight let me tell you she'd be done with dinner and flour was all over the place and she was disheveled cuz she'd been working all day on this meal and I say all day now but probably was just a couple of hours as a kid but it just felt like all day all right so I've got my uh Chicken in here I'm going to get some chicken stocked down about six cups are going to go in this is great you know special meal for your family I've shortened it a little bit here and made it something that you can kind of put together in about D 30 45 minutes the rest of my chicken stock in here this is going to be the most flavorful quick broth you've ever made oh man the celery is going to make it nice and light crisp flavor we've got the Peppercorns in there onions and now to my six cups of chicken stock six cups of water what I'm going to do is bring this to a nice boil and poach my chicken up when we get back I'm going to show you how to make dumplings out of this flavorful chicken broth what I want to do now is just kind of pay attention to my uh poach that I've got here remember my little uh herbs that I went ahead and twined up we've got the parsley the sage and the th I'm going to take the those out because I've already gotten the flavor from them and plus look at the color it's not really totally appealing I'm going to get my chicken out as well I love poaching chicken it's fast and plus it soaks up the juices from the broth and so it's going to be flavorful on the inside and flavored by all of the lovely herbs that we put in here along with the onion and the black pepper corn this is going to be great along with some chicken stock as well a little bit of water to help it out and I fish out my uh celery as well well there we go that's it that's all out and good to go what I want to do now is show you how to make these dumplings okay my mom used to take all day like I said to make this but I'm going to shorten it for you because I'm going to be using some water or actually the broth that we just built right there so first things first I want to get uh some flour in here and then I'm going to add in some of the broth from the pot so two cups of flour go in this isn't baking it's totally an eyeball thing and then what I want to do is do a heavy dosing of salt you don't want a dumpling that you can't taste it's just flowery and then remember the herbs that I chopped up earlier we've got a mirror effect we've got the sage the parsley and the thyme that I also wrapped up and put into that broth to make it nice and flavorful and earthy put that in there as well I'm just going to give it a quick little stir and to this I'm going to add this flavor broth that I've already kind of worked for why slave on making a beautiful broth like this and not use it in your actual dumplings so I'm going to go ahead and get some of this broth out there we go don't worry if you get a couple of pepper corns and onions in get my chocolate to the side here because it's all about the dough right now what I want to do is I'm just going to go ahead and build a well in the center I'm going to add in this chicken stock and slowly start to incorporate it what I'm looking for is a moist but firm dough that I can make into a ball and roll out into dumplings TR just rolling this out to about A4 of an inch thickness here and then what I'm going to do is make squares and then out of those squares make triangles so I like to kind of go in and Corner myself off just a bit here so I have some straight lines to work with and let me show you how you make a dumpling with a pizza cutter just kind of go in and make little squares here and then go in and make some lateral moves now my mom used to make these huge huge but I find they cook a lot faster of course when they're small so just kind of go in and make your little triangles that's what I'm going to do now when we get back I'm going to dunk these into that flavorful broth and it's time to eat a meal that didn't take all day to make hey I'm just adding the last of my dumplings into this flavorful broth that we went ahead and poached the chicken in it was bone in skin on chicken that I went ahead and just shred it off of the bone I'm going to get it right back into my pot this is flavored up with the chicken stock and a little bit of water and some black pepper corns to add some bite to it and then I also threw in that big huge bouquet Garney or my tied up herbs and that was the thyme the parsley and the sage I'm just getting all of this back in here together and also don't forget the onions garlic and celery now when you add the dumplings in you want to make sure that your broth is at a rolling boil because all of that activity is going to kind of help separate the dumplings when you put them in you don't want them to stick together and you also don't want to shake off all the flour because the flour is going to help thicken this broth and stock up really nice for you all right just going to get out my chicken and dumplings look at that that's beautiful a nice heaping bowl full this is great for the winter time especially if you have a little bit of a cold makes you feel like you're all loved I'm going to get some of this yeah Mom waited all day m to get her praise for this meal it's amazing chicken and dumplings that don't take all day long they're delicious I'm putting together some cozy comforting dishes that taste like home to us like everything bagel chicken and biscuits this is essentially a saucy Stewie chicken pot pie mixture baked with Buttermilk Biscuits on top that are incrusted in everything bagel seasoning to start with my biscuits I'll combine 3 and A3 cups of allpurpose flour and 1 and 1/2 tbsp of barley malt powder barley malt is one of the things that gives Bagels their faint sweet flavor you could substitute it with a pinch of sugar a tablespoon of baking powder and a teaspoon of baking soda and a teaspoon and a half of kosher salt always together the dry ingredients and then get my butter which is in the fridge so I'll incorporate the butter by Smashing it into little sheets between my fingers the number one rule of biscuits is to keep the butter cold that's what allows you to have a flaky biscuit and I'm working toward a consistency where the butter is around the size of peas okay this butter looks good before I bring the dough oil together I'll toss in some chopped fresh chives it'll be really pretty when the biscuits bake 1 and 1/2 cups of Buttermilk will bring the dough together once this dough comes together I'll stick it in the refrigerator for a little while so that it could firm back up make sure all of the dry ingredients are Incorporated I'll wrap this up and I'll stick this in the fridge while I get going on my filling I'm starting by cooking down all my veggies in some butter it smells heavenly right now cuz I don't only have onions but I've also got leaks for a little bit of a springier alium flavor I'll toss in a garlic clove that's finally chopped and then I'll build my Rue right in with the veggies so I'll sprinkle in 1/4 cup of allpurpose flour I'll stir this in and allow the flour flavor to cook off and now I'll begin to add my liquid so I've got 1 and 1/2 cups each of low sodium chicken stock it's important to do that gradually so that the sauce stays smooth and half and half for that great creaminess I'll finish up the sauce by adding 4 oz of cream cheese I love the tanginess that this will contribute allow this cream cheese to melt and get gooey I'll season this with another couple of pinches of salt and some black pepper I'll get my chicken this is 1 and 1/2 lbs of boneless skinless chicken thigh and I'm going to plop this in I'll actually be cooking the chicken right in this mixture we get this evenly dispersed let me grab my Peas I love the little pops of sweetness that peas bring and they look cute I'm using Frozen but you could also use fresh sprinkle in about a cup and lastly I'll sprinkle in some chopped fresh parsley okay so I'll remove this from the Heat and let it cool slightly while I stamp my biscuits out I'll dust my Surface with some flour and I'll roll this out until it's about 3/4 of an inch thick okay so I'm stamping this out with my circle cutter they're ready for their everything bagel topping it's just poppy seeds sesame seeds dried garlic and onion with a pinch of carow and salt all mixed up but sorbot works too as my glue I'll brush on some half and half I'm not holding back with this I love the crunch I love the flavor so now that these are ready I can transfer them right onto the filling space them out evenly they will puff up and spread a little bit in the oven looking pretty already I'll get this in the oven at 425° for 45 to 50 minutes until the biscuits are golden brown and the mixture is bubbly I'm so excited to eat this I am smelling the garlic from the everything bagel holy buckets it looks gorgeous dazzle with flakey salt I'm so ready to eat this oh yeah that's fantastic I'm going to make jumbalaya please hook up the green and the red bell pepper small dice so jumbalaya is one of to me one of the three main dishes in New Orleans there's gumbo etu and jumbalaya so the differences between the two or the three are so like narrow and small um I would say gumbo is served over rice right it could be sausage Seafood etu again served over rice but usually just Seafood okay and then what I truly love about uh jumbalaya is it's served with the rice in it so the rice Cooks in it it gets that Flavor now there also some things that I kind of break the rules on here uh but that's the great thing about cooking so I'm starting my jumbalaya in this big Dutch oven here and I had some oil down and this is andou sausage so iconic for New Orleans spicy Smokey I just cut it down to rounds got some fat from it and then added a little bit more fat when I pulled them out um to put them on the plate with a slotted spoon and then in I just put in some dark meat chicken so some thighs with the bones removed and cut down to chunks my flavoring is just a little bit of Creole seasoning or Cajun seasoning and that just goes into the pot we're not trying to cook anything completely through we just want to let it hang out and sear so turn everything up really really high and just let that hang and become one one with the seasoning one with the SE yeah yeah also add in the red chili flakes so they can bloom as well now over here with what's happening we've all heard about the miraa we know the trinity in New Orleans which is the base for a lot of their dishes is H white onion celery and green bell pepper but for jumbalaya red bell pepper is also super delicious I've got some thyme here that I just chopped down very nicely and I'm going to get in on my celery Sunny tell me about the seasoning you you put in there it smells so good it's just a Cajun or Creole seasoning you can find it in the seasoning aisle it's going to have paprika garlic um onion powder some thyme um it's just really really salty as well so you have to watch your salt content all right so chicken out andou sausage out I'm going to start just really flavoring things up we're going to go in with our Trinity start with our onions I'll take that oh there she go our bell pepper very serious over okay Chef come on with it come on Alex Che we Chef in the zone celery going in compost compost it compost I'm going to give that a little toot when you put it in there be with my th okay and then move this around with a nice pinch of salt remembering that fre old seasoning cast salt already a little bit of help goes in I mean how could this not be good right let tell you something I moved to New Orleans because of the food yeah that's it yeah that's it so you see how the pot shut up a little bit and that's going to cook some and as everything gets nice and tender I'm going to add in some crushed tomato that's traditional okay you can crush them yourself if you like as well but usually Fila powder is used in gumbo but I love it in Jambalaya you put Fila powder in your jambalaya I do I do um it's floral it's light it also has a little bit of a thickening agent um which is going to help we don't really need need need it because the rice and the starch and the rice is going to help what is f powder so Fel powder is from the sassa right and they just dry it and they grind it up and if you've ever smelled a sassa fras it's just it's got a really light flavor it's got a light scent kind of like sumac Vibes all right so obviously you see this is going to cook down a bit and when it's cooked down a bit it's going to look like this and take a look at that deep rich red colors just I mean the waft is everything and now we're going to start adding in the liquid this is chicken stock base you can add chicken stock if you like but I just love the base let me get a spoon it stays in my fridge they've got this company has like roasted garlic seafood B it's got beef base yeah yeah so get that in there now remember this is also pretty salty got be careful all right so you've got to add a good amount of water to that got be careful okay by the way the pot shut up and so did we as soon as you open it know I got look at that how rich it is a Saito kind of thing going on I mean this is a dish I mean everyone knows Creole food is an amalgamation of like French and Spanish and African and so you can say to yourself this is kind of like um paa Vibes but in a dutch oven so then we're going to add our back in all that greas there yeah and then some rice you can use long grain short grain whatever wash your rice Sunny um not for this because you do want that starch to hang out so yeah put it all in there cuz it really does impart a little bit of thickening to our jumbalaya oh come on now oh look at that now at the very end I like to add in my shrimp okay and then just give it a nice stir and let the heat of the pot you can turn the pot off by now what type of shrimp are those large like so maybe 20 25 no I leave them whole oh wow and then I just cover it back up after I hit it with a nice Shake of hot sauce Louisiana hot sauce There is a quintessential Louisiana brand I'm not using that now I'm using a Texas Brand a little bit of homage to Texas which took on a lot of louisianans after they had a hurricane they all traveled on I 10 and found a new home and then I'm just going to close this back up and let the ambient heat cook our shrimp give it a nice last stir and get it into our bowl and then right at the very end I still love to add a little bit of Fela powder oh there F powder yep some is this a portion scallions yeah that's this is a sunny portion sorry that's an entire portion jees you got to do the taste look at this beautiful chicken oh look at him eating it up look at this guy well it's spicy in the very best way stick to your ribs in the very best way yeah cuz it's so comforting it's warming the spice is perfect and I'm stunned at how perfect the chicken cooked one pan creamy cheesy or zoto so I've already got a pan going with some olive oil sliced shallots and rosemary the shallots are already starting to turn brown so I'm going to add some orzo pasta right into the pan yum and some garlic scrape it right in and then I'm going to stir it around and make sure the orzo pasta is totally coated in this delicious shallot Rosemary garlic oil mixture I think I included everything there or zoto is an amazing dish and it's very much like Roto which is made with our Oreo rice but orzotto is made with pasta but it follows the same basic procedure you cook it for a little while with some aromatics start adding broth add it gradually and the pasta will slowly absorb the liquid and the whole finished product is just creamy and dreamy it takes less time than Roto T so it's kind of a quick solution if you're a big rotto fan this menu I'm making is going to have a Mediterranean spin which I know my sister loves I know Paige loves I know Alex loves we don't know about stew and Macio cuz they're not here right now yeah we'll just let them who cares we'll let them go get a burger and fries okay so I've been kind of cooking the orzo pasta with the other ingredients and I'm going to add half a cup of white wine M oh my gosh that was by far the most exciting thing that's happened to me all day and then I have some simmering broth it's vegetable broth but you can use chicken broth seafood broth whatever broth floats your boat that's a very weird phrase and then I'm going to turn the heat down it's really hot so it already kind of got off to a good start with cooking okay now I'm going to stir this and cook it slowly for about 5 minutes and then I'll bring in the creamy cheesiness but I promised okay I'm going to add a little bit of salt and pepper and then a little bit of pinched a little bit of crushed red pepper flakes and then I'm going to turn the heat way down and add the creamy cheesiness so first things first cream hello and some I call Supermarket mozzarella it's not fresh mozzarella it's like Supermarket mozzarella and then half a container of mascaron cheese oo but you could use cream cheese if that's what you have in your fridge and basically any cheese combination works and then about 4 oz of goat cheese and I'm going to kind of break it up as it goes in honestly or zoto is one of those dishes that you can just pull out whatever you have in your fridge that you want to get rid of all right so I also have some fried tomatoes amazing flavor they're chopped really fine and kale M so it kind of has you can tell yourself it's healthy cuz it has all of that it's basically a salad yeah it's a salad with a little bit of pasta okay so I'm going to fold look at that cheese holy mackerel go you weren't kidding about creamy cheesy I was not kidding when I make promises I keep them so I'm going to stir stir this around and let it continue cooking just for about 3 to 4 minutes this is going to be amazing easy white bean and mushroom soup this is very simple I've got some store-bought shortcuts I want to show you just really first starting with this if you have not gone to your freezer section and done some reinvigoration of your freezer section at home you are missing out because you can get these sauteed and chopped onion pods you keep them in your freezer they stay good for a long time time they also have garlic ginger and some people have even found some herb ones in the freezer section so just a couple of the little pods could just plunk them out and they'll just kind of meld into everything matter fact I'll add three um and then to that I've got some mushrooms I just buy a couple of those little packs of wild mushrooms that are like mixed together and I chop them down so get that in no salt yet okay because the salt's going to make it wet and then they're going to steam more than they will actually Brown and cook so just get them in there I've got my pot on like a nice medium high so they can actually get a little bit of color on them turn it up a little bit and then to the pot some th it's like Nature's Own bouquet Garney it's it's already attached and ready to go just get that in there all right now mushrooms soak up a lot of fat so you might have to add a little bit of extra olive oil but not too much and let it just kind of hang out for a second all right you're just going to wait until everything Cooks down kind of like spinach mushroom has lots of water in it so you'll start with a big pile and then everything Cooks down to a small little bit this is going to bring a lot of color actually as well to our soup okay to that I love these little tiny sweet peppers you can find them they have like yellow orange and red and all just one big bag sometimes I'll just put them on the grill and Char them and serve them right next to a steak uh but they're also very good in this just chop them down they're not spicy at all at a nice sweet note and color it's beautiful uh then a can of white beans calini just rinse them off get them in there okay A little bit of flavor here I love adding grained Dijon mustard to gravies and sauces so why not a soup it just adds a little bit of funk a little zip as well to that vegetable stock wait a minute am I going vegan slow down but listen I haven't added any animal fat yet so this is good for the vegans My Vegan crew as you add this in remember that bottom that was nice and golden brown and crusted from sautéing our mushrooms just make sure you use your spoon to get in there and just really move things around now to this I like to add some salt okay because remember we did not salt the mushrooms the vegetable stock is going to come with its own kind of salt and then tons of black pepper just go you know go crazy and add extra flavor but look at this all right so I'm going to cover this it's going to simmer for about 20 minutes that's just going to allow all of the flavors to really come together and then we're going to add in Katie's favorite ingredient you already know what it is all right let me get the soup up here now remember cover it up low simmer and look at this how it reduces and just really it is showing off beautiful now remember that sprig that we put in in the very beginning that sprig of time with personality just go in and get it out all right as it's nice and bubbly here um another store bought short cut I love is going into the produce section and getting that bag of already pre-shredded kale uh I further chop it down because I don't want the strings I always think about getting things onto my spoon when I make a soup I want everything to be on the spoon at the same time so in my mind I want some bean I want some mushroom and I want some kale to all be on the spoon so chopping down the pre-red will really get you to the Finish Line there this only takes about 60 seconds to wilt in kind of has the curb appeal of an Italian wedding soup there you have it it is my white bean and mushroom soup so simple so much personality so much color come on start your dinner party off right look at that now at the very end I like to come in and just kind of make it nice and bright it's really going to marry well with that mustard that you put in there it's G to really make the mustard kind of talk and what I'm talking about is a quick little Spritz of lemon so you can kind of serve a little lemon wedge with it and allow everyone to be interactive with their soup and then a little hot sauce it is summertime and that means it's time to haul hay and that's exactly what lad and the crew are going to do today so I am going to get dinner ready so that when they're all finished hauling hay they can just come home settle in and Chow Down now first step on the menu is delicious chunky chili and it actually takes about 3 hours to cook and that's why I'm starting it now before the hay hauling even begins so before you got here I tossed a bunch of chuck roast in seasoned flour I just seasoned it with salt and pepper I also seasoned the chuck of chuck roast okay so I'm going to crank up the heat just a little bit and look at how Brown this is Paige how beautiful can you see into the pot Yum Yum Yum now I'm going to add all the stuff that turns beef into chili so two cans of tomato sauce most of the time whenever I make chili here on drum and ranch I use ground beef and it's more of a ground beef based hamburger chili but I love chunky chili It's almost like stew when you finish it up but it has all the not to be confused with that stew stew so I've got the beef and tomato sauce in the pan and I'm going to add two tablespoons of regular chili powder and then for a little spin ooh a tablespoon of ancho chili powder which is really just unmistakable I love the flavor of ancho chili powder and I like combining regular chili powder with ancho and then get the tablespoon in there tablespoon of cumin okay and then some minced garlic goes in look at that doesn't look good and I'll stir it around and then I've got to add about a cup of water just to help make the chili nice and Saucy my girls grew up hauling hay on this Ranch would you girls say it's one of your favorite activities or one of your least favorite least favorite think it's down there on the Le I never understood why they don't love it because you really just stay in a truck and just haul back and forth but because you're pulling thousands of pounds of hay that's so true so I added a cup of water and some salt and pepper and now yes you need a bottle open do I I guess I don't drink drink beer I do need a bottle opener shoot hold on yeah would you please thank you Alex D Addis okay so next thing I'm going to add is a bottle of beer I just like beer and chili and I like beer and chili so do your dashes of hot sauce because I get nervous if I don't add hot sauce to everything I make and then the last thing I'm going to go ahead and add the beans now and I've got a can each of pinto beans black beans and kidney beans and I have them in these little strainers because I poured them out of the cans and I rinsed them and drained them you know that some people don't like beans in their chili I know beans and chili is a controversial thing but I like to add now they're going to get kind of mushy and all mixed in but that doesn't matter to me all right so now all I've got to do is put the lid on the pot turn it down to a simmer and let it cook for 3 hours see you back then okay over to the hay hauling the hay is already been cut Rak and bailed so lad enlisted Todd to help him haul it they'll pick up the big Bales with the tractor load them onto trailers haul them to a different part of the ranch and they'll be all ready to feed the cattle this this winter this is the job where you got to kind of know what you're doing it's not bad once you get to hang out I'm going to take some cookies in a little while and they are going to be excited cuz they are their favorite cowboy Josh and his little boy T are joining them later but for now it's just lad and Todd all right the hay operation has officially begun and this chili is officially done that was kind of a rhyme look at this can you believe this is what the chili looks like after 3 hours every now and then I checked it and gave it a stir and made sure it wasn't getting too dry if you feel like it is you can always just splash in more hot water it looks perfect now I'm going to actually let it cool before I put it in the fridge but I know someone here really wants to taste this who is it Paige Paige is hungry her mouth is watering so look at this Alex now I made some condiments to go with the chili Chipotle cream which is nothing more than chipotle peppers a little bit of Adobo sauce and sour cream I'm going to put it right on top along with a little bit of red onion and a little bit of cilantro I think we should taste it together oh my gosh I'm so excited me too this looks amazing oh my gosh that's so good so I'm going to chill the little condiments on a tray cover this up these will be ready to go and then I'm going to let the chili cool down completely and then I'll put it in the fridge the main course for dinner is already done I love it when that happens crab and peoto an incredibly comforting one pop meal so I'm making crab and PE Roto and it starts with 6 to 8 cups of simmering Seafood stock then next I have 2 tbsp of butter and 2 tspoons of oil and then melt it in big Dutch oven make the whole thing in this one pot I'm going to add some flavorings half a cup of fennel finely diced want this risort to have great flavor half a cup of shallots finely diced and I love fennel with seafood and these are pablano peppers they're kind of warm they're not really really hot and just give of a little K you don't want boring risoto I'm just going to sauté these for about 5 minutes perfectly cooked okay now I'm going to add two tpoon of garlic Cho minced garlic you don't want to cook the garlic too much so it'll burn so I'm just going to cook it for a minute I'm going to add half a teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes give it a little heat along with the pablano peppers half a teaspoon of saffron saffron's critical for risoto I love saffron I don't know what it is about saffron but I really miss it when it's not in risoto it's just got a heat it's got this really subtle flavor but it's really important I love it and it makes risoto yellow just gorgeous okay next is the time for my garden so I'm just going to put it in right over the pot one teaspoon of fresh thy leaves and just strip the leaves and just run your finger right down the stem end up with fresh thyme okay next is the rice so it's Italian or Boro rice really need to use that I'm just going to put a cup and a half in and this is the key you want to stir it and make sure each grain of rice is coated with butter this smells amazing Au Boro rice really has the right amount of starchiness for risotto it's got a cream in this when you're done that really is perfect for this dish next is the wine can't make risotto without wine so I need one cup of white wine I'm using a good Italian wine Peno ggio and just pour it in okay just give that a stir just going to cook this until the wine evaporates until so the flavor is absorbed into the rice okay next little bit of a process add stock stir and repeat so I'll keep stirring for 5 minutes then add a ladle full of stock my tip is to use a half2 cup Ladle so it makes it easy to see how much you add then keep stirring and when the seafood stock is almost completely absorbed add another half a cup of stock and just keep going adding stock until the rice is alente it takes about 25 minutes okay now I'm going to add a little creme fresh it's going to give it a little richness so half a cup of creme fresh just always tastes better just stir that in okay next are salt and pepper about two teaspoons of salt want to make sure it's really well seasoned as everything else and about a teaspoon of pepper okay next to the crab meat so I have about a pound of lump crab meat and it's not the shredded kind it's the you know big pieces I mean you can use the shredded kind but you won't really taste it as much it'll flavor it but it won't really have the bite that this does it's particularly good it's a little more expensive but it's really worth it just put that in along with peas I use frozen defrosted peas they're perfectly good if peas are in season they're even better but it just takes so much time and frozen peas are really pretty good and they're already blanched how good does this look for dinner entire dinner in one pot okay now I need a big balll so I can taste it I mean the key to this is just make sure that the rice is cooked through it's not mushy it's El Dante and there's still a lot of creaminess in the sauce and see how it's it's not thick it's really creamy and then at the end I'd love to add a few things just at the top some fresh chives nice thing about chives is they're always in season and if they're not in the garden you can get them at the store just little chives on top give it a little oniony freshness and a little lemon zest which I like with seafood you can put it in the pot or on each Bowl but there's no cheese in this at all Italians never put cheese with seafood Jeffrey once was at a restaurant in LA and asked for Parmesan for a seafood pasta and the waiter just went like no you can't have it we still laugh about that oh this looks incredible see how creamy it is and really taste all the flavors the crab meat and the peppers fennel saffron this is one big bowl of comfort pot roast so I have my one pot I oil it up I'm salting this a lot hey baby you're hot my chuck roast oh yeah that's what I'm talking about that's brown food ditch the fat and add a little bit more olive oil couple of onions a couple ribs of celery some garlic salt cracked red Brown it some more let's thicken this up a little we're going to add a little tomato paste we Brown that as well and then toss a little vinegar in there add in a little thyme bundle some bay leaves and a couple of star anas all right so I'm going to add in some water I'm going to put my meat back in the pan and then I cover it about half to 2/3 of the way couple strips of orange zust put a lid on it we're going to put this guy in the oven in an hour I take out my pot roast M that smells good let's turn this baby over I put the lid back on and toss it in the oven for another hour so I have some butternut squash that I've peeled and diced I have some Jerusalem artichokes that are going in there we put some dried figs in there I'm going to stir these guys in we're going to toss this back in the oven for about half an hour oh let's come down the home stretch I'm going to toss this back in the oven for 20 more minutes with no lid on what happens is the liquid Cooks down it's warm it's brown it's delicious red wine Brae short ribs fall off the bone where is the meat in the pot where is the bone on the spoon so I have 5 lbs of bone in short ribs in a bowl here I'm just going to add liberal salt and pepper cuz this is a lot of short rib a half a cup of flour and the flour is going to help get this really nice Brown sear and I'm only using enough flour to coat the short ribs we're not deep frying them just going to sear all sides of my beef ribs creating a nice little crispy layer what's left over in the pot is the start of your layers of flavor while that's searing I'm going to get my veggies ready so I have carrots celery onion and garlic I'm just going to put this in my food processor everything is going to break down in that oil and it's going to really enhance the flavor of those short ribs I'm adding two stocks of celery one one large white onion and three cloves of garlic so I'm processing my carrots onion and celery make sure all those chunks of veggies are broken down all right that's great let me turn my short ribs let them cook on the other side look how Brown they are there's some crust down there from the flour and oil that's where all of the flavor lies they are done M they smell incredible just going to add my sauté veggies right to the mixture in the pot with the oil left over from the short ribs I'm just cooking the veggies until they become nice and soft and some of that uh liquid from the veggies Cooks out now I'm going to add some tomato paste the tomato paste is going to help it thicken up as well now I'm going to add some flour and that's going to help the brazing liquid get just a little bit more thick pinch of Italian seasoning that's oregano parsley thyme 2 cups of beef broth the beef broth is really going to enhance that flavor the fun part one bottle dry red wine I'm going to reduce this wine by half and then add in my beef ribs and I'm going to add a bay leaf all right I'm going to let this Reduce by half so that should take about 10 to 15 minutes I'm going to let this bake at 300 for 3 hours to get that meat super super tender and when it comes out it will fall off the bone this is my simple perfect chili and it really is just that it's a total cinch to make I just throw 2 lbs of ground beef into a large pot with two cloves of chopped garlic then cook it till it Browns while that's happening I mix up the herbs and spices 1 teaspoon of ground oregano 1 teaspoon of ground cumin A4 a teaspoon of cayenne pepper 2 tspoon of chili powder and 1 teaspoon of salt then I add an 8 oz can of tomato sauce the spices and give it a good stir put on the lid and simmer it for an hour after that I grab 1/4 cup of Masa mixed with half a cup of water Masa is cornflour and it's thickens the chili and adds a great corn flavor after an hour I dump the Masa mixture into the chili stir it together well then let it simmer for a few more minutes then it's done simply perfect okay I just snipped the bags open dinner doesn't get much easier than this does it and I'm just going to place them in the pot and then just pour some water over the top and then heat them up and the water will eventually evaporate and it'll be perfect all right the Chili's thawed I'll just throw the beans in I'm using kidney beans and pinto beans but you can use whatever beans you have in your pantry and I'm just going to let this simmer gently until they get back for moving cattle around and then I've got some fixen ready for the chili the great thing about these fixen is they're all pantry and fridge standbys I've got tortilla chips lime wedges red onion and of course grated cheese you got to have lots and lots of grated cheese when you serve chili so I'm going to whip up some yummy beef stew with cheddar cheese grits for hin and that way she won't have to think about dinner at all I've got two pots going cuz I'm actually going to make one for hent family and one for mine I'm going to Brown the meat first I got a chuck roast and cut it into big cubes I actually haven't told hent that I'm making dinner for her I'm just going to run in and pick up Alex like I always do and then spring dinner on her at the last minute okay the meat's nice and brown so I'm going to go ahead and take it out of the pot it's by no means cooked it looks like it is but in the stew it's going to simmer for a couple of hours and this chuck roast gets so tender I'm going to add an onion to each pot the pot is nice and brown it has a lot of bits from the meat in there and then I'm going to add about three cloves of chopped garlic to each pot all right now I'll just stir the onions and garlic around a bit the pots are so hot they're almost translucent already so I really just need to cook them for about a minute so I'm just going to take a break and grab a couple beers it's been a long day just kidding I'm going to add the beer to the stew this gives the stew really great flavor so I'm just going to add 32 oz of beef stock to each pot now to the pots I'm just going to add a few dashes of Worster sure Worster sure always adds a nice savoriness little bit of richness then I'm just going to add a little bit of tomato paste to each pot gives a little bit of a Tang gives the sauce a little little bit of richness so good and I like to add paprika to the stew also it gives it a great flavor but it also kind of helps with the color and then I'll add a little bit of sugar to each pot now the last thing I need to do in this stage is add the meat into the pot so I'll just slide half into this one and half into this one okay now I'll just stir the meat in make sure it's all combined and then I'll all I need to do now is be patient I'm going to put the lids on the pot turn the heat down let the beef stew simmer for about an hour and a half and then I'll put the root vegetables in let it simmer until it's done and hyn is going to be so happy all right the beef Stew's been simmering away for about an hour and a half and now it's time to add in the vegetables I got to tell you this smells so delicious I smell everything the beer the broth now I've got two carrots for each pot and then I also have two parsnips for each pot and then I have one turnip and that's enough for both pots so about a half a turnup per pot now I didn't want to add these at the beginning because the vegetables would be pretty much disintegrated so this is the perfect time to add them let them simmer for about 30 minutes till the veggies are nice and tender the last thing I'm going to do is thicken up the cooking liquid a little bit I'll drizzle in some beef stock into 3 tablespoons of flour and I just want to make a really really smooth pretty thin paste now I'll just add a little bit into each pot and then it's going to keep bubbling just for about 10 minutes or so and it's going to make the stew just perfect and Rich and thick I'm going to make some split peas soup okay 2 tablespoons of olive oil and a cup of onions about one yellow onion I was put the onions in first cuz they don't burn as easily as the garlic just mint the garlic finally you know there's no real secret to mincing the only thing you want to do is hold the tip down with one finger and then move the handle up and down otherwise the knife jumps all over the board and it's hard to control okay Garlic's ready okay now some flavors definitely need salt and pepper 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of salt I use cusher salt one teaspoon of pepper and half a teaspoon of dried oregano can't get that and just stir that around let that cook with the onions wonder how TR is getting along with this assignment sounds like a secret mission I think the onions and garlic are done hope Tia likes this soup it's nice to have something that's actually delicious and I'm good for you I'm going to add two cups of carrots chopped like big chunks you want this to be really good hearty Chunky Soup okay and a cup of diced potatoes nice thing about the potatoes is you don't have to peel them you don't have to bother peel tastes just fine it's going to cook for a long time I don't want to peel anything that small anyway okay right into the pot eight cups of good chicken stock this is homemade if you can make homemade it's really worth it but if not you can find a good chicken stock in the grocery store okay and now we're going to put in split peas so going to use about a pound of split peas which is about two cups of split peas total but I'm going to only put in about 1 and 1/2 cups to start with so it makes a really thick soup and then I put the rest in right it about halfway through the cooking so you get really chunky just a bite of split peas also so I'm just going to let this simmer for about 40 minutes m this is going to be a really nice soup to come home to so split pea soup is half done looking pretty good so at this point halfway through the cooking I'm going to add another half a cup of split cheese and what that does is then the split peas that are already in there get really soft and make the soup really rich and thick and then these split peas will cook a little less so they'll have a little bit of bite to them which is really good I like both textures continue to let the soup simmer and just cook it for another 40 minutes it's going to be rich and delicious and so good for you today we're going to make quickie chicken ministr soup this is a super easy soup to make it's hearty it's got lots of flavors ministr doesn't normally have chicken in it but we're going to add a little bit and we're using chicken breasts which actually cook more quickly you can also use thighs if you want but it'll just take a little bit longer to cook and sometimes if I want to bump up this soup even a little bit more I'll add some cook beans or chickpeas for added protein so let's get cooking the first thing we're going to do is get all our vegetables together and cooking now ministr in Italian means a big soup right so this is a big soup filled with lots of different vegetables I'm going to start with some carrots I just feel like every Minon I've ever had has had carrots as part of the ingredient list right got that natural sweetness from them got great texture we're definitely peeling them we're going a little bit fancy here right and here's the thing about peeling them I love a a little square peeler and I like this one it's pretty cheap which I like you just want to peel straight down in a single motion you notice how I'm peeling away from myself and I'm just holding the carrot on the end okay so those are peeled always have a little scrap Bowl when you're cooking so you can keep your work surface right in front of you totally clear clear cutting board clear head good cooking okay just take the little ends off right and just with a chef's knife you notice I'm just holding the two carrots together we're going to cut them at the same time and I'm holding them down and I'm squeezing them so that they actually stay together I'm just going to cut thin rounds between a quarter and an eigh of an inch and you notice I'm cutting with this part of the knife right close to the heel I guess and just cutting these rounds of carrots I really think the texture of the carrots is essential for the ministr we want to go all the way up to the top okay so I've got a medium siiz heavy bottom pot we're just going to cook this Stove Top and we're going to start with 3 tablespoons of olive oil and as we cut the vegetables we'll drop them in so we start with our carrots two carrots cut into rounds add a pinch of salt soften them get them to start giving up their water next up scallions I've got six scallions here and we're going to use the whole thing right because we don't have any onions or shallots in this those are longer cooking and this is a quickie ministr so you'll notice all our vegetables don't take long to cook just cut it into thin rounds as thin as you can get I like to use the unsharp edge to gather up almost like a a broom sweeping the board and dropping those scallions right in with those carrots and you'll notice also that by dragging the unsharp knife along the board we don't dull our blade more quickly right cut sweet okay next up three large cloves of garlic and you know this is sort of a rustic soup so where I might normally mince or grade or dice the garlic I'm just going to cut it into thin rounds you don't want too too thick with the garlic get as thin as you can and I'm going to sweep right up into the pot with the garlic I'm going add another pinch of salt salt helps the vegetables to give up their water makes them soften more quickly makes them taste good stir and smell this start to come together and I love this cuz we kind of build it as we go right there's not a dull moment here scrape down the sides make sure the vegetables aren't sticking too much the Heat's kind of mediumish medium low nice and easy we've got a half a pound of white mushrooms don't tell anybody I told you this is our special Food Network kitchen secret just run them underwater to wash off any serious excess dirt and do that right before you cook them and that way they're not sitting around and sponging up that water with nowhere to go the water will cook back out when you cook the mushrooms so here we're just going to quarter the mushrooms the mushrooms are kind of meaty in this recipe we don't want to slice them kind of thin you want to bite into kind of a wedge of mushroom and it's nice that all the vegetables are cut differently so when you're eating the soup it feels like a lot of different things cuz it is right in there look at that smells so good to that we're going to add one teaspoon of dry oregano now you can also use fresh oregano if you like but if you are going to use fresh oregano use a little bit less once all the vegetables are in here together you can turn up the heat a little bit you'll see that as the mushrooms cook they really watery and they're going to release a good amount of liquid you want to get that out of there as fast as possible smells good right another tiny pinch of salt okay so at this point we're going to let these vegetables cook another 8 to 10 minutes until they're nice and tender and delicious and when we come back we're going to add the chicken stock okay so once our vegetables have cooked a little bit more and they're getting nice and tender they're giving up all that water and they're super tasty we're ready to add our chicken stock we're going to add three cups of stock right to the pot now I have often made a ministr by the way with water but since we're not cooking this soup very long we want to give ourselves a little Ace in the Hole and start with stock that way there's some buil-in flavor to bring us to the Finish Line more quickly once you put the stock in turn the heat up a little bit right we always want a boil stock when we use it and we're also going to add 14 oz of crushed tomato smells good so you see we have a little balance here between the chicken stock and the chicken meat that we're going to introduce on one side of the ring and then on the other side the Tomato the crushed tomato and all those vegetables it's kind of nice it's a a sort of meaty Riff on a ministr I've got here four chicken breasts skinless boneless about 6 oz each and essentially we're going to poach the chicken in the soup that's going to give it tons of flavor then we're going to just pull the meat out pull it apart and put it back in at the end I'm going to add a tiny pinch of salt to the soup and more importantly we are also going to season our chicken before we add it to the soup so spread them out so they're all in a single layer and just salt them a little bit it's nice to Salt the meat before we add it to the broth so that the chicken is already set to be super flavorful and do this with the tongs instead of your hands so you don't have to do so much breaking for hand washing and whatever else salt on both sides and we have 3/4 cup of raw elbow macaroni um I love cooking the pasta right in the soup the beautiful starches from the pasta as it cooks are also going to add body to our soup so this soup is really the sum of its parts right it gets the benefit of the flavor of the chicken being poached right in the liquid and the pasta cooking in the liquid too it's it's like a one poot situation that I love and fun and easy so once our soup has come back up to a little bit of a simmer we're just going to drop those chicken breasts right in there you see now we're not high heat boiling this it's nice and easy right we don't want to boil the meat right because there's no fat on a chicken breast there's no skin there's nowhere to hide this is like a piece of meat that just has to be very carefully cooked right so we put those four chicken breasts submerged completely in the liquid and our 3/4 cup of elbow macaroni right in there raw so this has just become our vessel for cooking our chicken and cooking our pasta and we don't have five pots and pans on the stove and it's all going to happen pretty quickly that's the quickie chicken ministr so this is going to cook for 8 to 10 minutes then we'll meet back here slice our chicken and eat our soup okay so this soup kind of comes with its own buil-in markers for when it's done you can just look around and find a piece of that elbow macaroni that we added in and see if it's cooked and also most importantly that the chicken is cooked once it's cooked through we can just take those chicken breasts back out you see this is kind of simmering it's not boiling but it's on a nice simmer and that chicken is piping hot don't worry about if there's a few little bits of vegetabl when you take the chicken out we can put that back in the soup this is easiest with a slotted spoon though so you don't take too much with you we're actually going to shut the soup off and break up the chicken so the soup has a minute to rest while we're breaking the chicken meat and just putting it back in we want a little bit of the texture for the chicken in the Minon cuz it's it's an unusual thing to find in what is traditionally just a vegetable soup but it makes it more like a meal I think and then we just literally drop that chicken right back in the soup the soup is been simmering with the chicken in it right and now we're kind of letting it cool a little bit it's actually a surprising little thing we often talk about letting meat have a minute before we eat it you know to rest but it's nice also for things like soups and sauces to have a few minutes to get just that a little bit cooler right and a little bit more kind of buttoned up the soup kind of stopped simmering stirred that chicken back in just mix it back into the liquid and just before you serve it cuz here we are take a tiny Taste of the broth just to make sure the seasoning is on point and then we're ready to serve it up get a nice Ladle full of the pasta the vegetables M it's making me hungry now you have four whole chicken breasts cooked in this soup and you'll really see the benefit of cooking the meat right in the broth with the stock it just makes a a quicky soup that tastes like it cooked for a lot longer than it did and no one needs to know by the way you have this you cook this and you invite your friends over and you say oh my God this took me all afternoon to make this I'm exhausted right so there's our soup sprinkle of parm especially make sure the parm falls in the broth so it gives it a little body makes it look all that more inviting okay you can tear the basil I'm not a big Chopper of Basil cuz it just you know it gets discolored from the metal of the knife fold a few you can also stir all the cheese and basil right into the pot of soup and just put it right on the table if you like that better or you can get a little cheffy and fancy with yourself and do it bit by bit you know my whole childhood when my mom would eat something good she would say if it was good and I and I thought it's so annoying and here I am as an adult doing the exact same thing we are our parents in the best way\n"