In our first year of marriage we invited three couples over to our little apartment for dinner. This was one of our first times ever entertaining guests for dinner so we wanted to make a really good meal. We decided to try our hand at a White Chicken Chili recipe that Dave’s mom passed down to him. We read the recipe and saw that it served 4-6 people. Since we were feeding 8 people, we figured we should double the recipe. Sure, we may end up with some leftovers, but you can’t run out of food when serving guests, right?!
Oh man…I wish we had a picture of this! Every single burner on our stove had a pot on it and each pot was COMPLETELY full of soup. It was so ridiculous. We learned that night that this recipe serves 4-6 Eickelbergs (we can eat a lot of food). This recipe actually serves about 8 normal servings!
Last week we caught you up on the dinners we had in our last days at our old house, Turkey Fried Quinoa and Mac and Cheese. This week it’s time to catch up on the dinners we’ve had since moving to our new house. We didn’t want these beauties to slip through the cracks! First up…Tortellini Soup. We posted pictures of this hearty soup in 1 Cup Awesome Weekend, and promised the recipe would follow. We’re keeping our promise, and you’ll be glad we did! You have to make this as soon as possible! It’s fresh, healthy and super flavorful. Combining marinara and chicken stock makes the perfect tomato based soup. And it is so simple since it’s already seasoned so well! This, paired with all the tender crisp veggies, is a knockout. It has just enough tortellini and parmesan cheese to make feel indulgent. Are you hungry yet?!
When the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program offered us the opportunity to receive a selection of Newman’s Own products, we were stoked!!!
Oh yeah…they also threw in a free flip cam, which means we will be doing some videos in the near future.
They sent us various salad dressings, marinara sauces and a coupon for a free pizza. They challenged us to make a healthy and delicious family-friendly meal in under 30 minutes, using one of the products. We decided to take it one step further and made a meal using a salad dressing, a marinara sauce and a pizza!
Our master plan was to have soup, salad and breadsticks. It’s such a simple and satisfying meal. There’s something for everyone!
Do you ever have one of those moments where you see somebody make food and you think to yourself, “I need that food in my mouth right now!!!” It happens to us all the time when we are watching Food Network and it often leads to late night snacks. Perhaps we just love food too much?
We still remember the first time we saw Giada make her White Bean and Chicken Chili with Cheddar Scallion Bread. We pretty much took a trip the store as fast as we could to get all the ingredients for the meal! The cheddar scallion bread has become our go-to cheesy bread recipe, but it’s been a couple months since we have made the white bean and chicken chili.
The Iowa Hawkeyes played a night game on Saturday, and it felt like the perfect time to make the whole meal again!
But here is the problem…everybody thinks their chili recipe is the best recipe ever. You make chili the way you want to eat it. And the way you want to eat it may not be the way everyone else wants to eat it. Because of this, I have always been hesitant to enter chili cooking contests. I don’t want to come to learn that my favorite chili recipe is the one everybody else hates. So when my team at work decided to have a chili cook off, I had a big decision to make.
#1 – Do I go with the classic chili that I love?
#2 – Do I play a wildcard and make a chili that no one on my team has ever tasted?
I decided to go with option #2 in hopes that my chili would be unique enough to stand out from the rest of the competition and win the title of Quality Assurance Chili Cook Off Champ.
After talking it over with Sarah, we decided to make a chili that we have made once before and loved…Turkey Apple Chili!
Now…I know what you are probably thinking.
“Turkey and apples in chili?! This is America dang it! We don’t put apples in chili!”
I know it may sound kind of weird, but trust us on this one. It is so freaking good. This chili recipe even helped inspire the turkey apple sloppy joe’s that we recipe made! Ground turkey, apples, cheddar cheese and tomatoes – it’s like these ingredients were made for each other!
We have been hit hard at our house with some nasty cold/flu junk. It came out of nowhere and came on strong! We have a very specific plan when we’re sick…Sudafed, Advil, humidifiers, orange juice and of course, chicken noodle soup!! Some have claimed that chicken noodle soup really does have a medicinal effect that helps you get over colds faster. This could be due to the steam clearing your sinuses or all the nutrients in the veggies and chicken. We even read that it can act as an anti-inflammatory. While the verdict is still out on whether these things really do the trick, we are completely sold that it’s just what we need when we’re feeling crummy. It just feels warm and comforting. We came up with this quick and easy recipe for our chicken noodle soup a few years back and it’s become a family favorite. It’s packed with flavor…and love. Haha! Couldn’t resist.
Here is the secret to this flavor packed Chicken Noodle Soup…
Unlike Billy Madison, we did not pack up our lunch to take to school. We both grew up eating “hot lunch” every day. School lunches were hit and miss. Some of them we loved. Some…not so much (i.e. Shrimp Shapes – whatever the crap those things were).
This week, we decided to revisit our past and remake some of our favorite school lunches and snacks. If you were to ask most people in small town Iowa what their favorite school lunch was, many of them (including us) would say, “Chili and Cinnamon Rolls.” So for the first day of Back To School Week at 1 cup Awesome, we decided to make this incredible lunch. If you did not grow up in a school that served these two foods together, it may sound like the weirdest combo ever. Please take our word for us on this…it is glorious.
Just when your mouth can’t handle any more spicy chili, you take a bite of the sweet, gooey cinnamon roll and all is right in the world.
To save time, we used our favorite store-bought cinnamon rolls, Rhodes. We served them with carrots, ice cold milk, fritos (to put in the chili), and of course, The Best Chili Ever.
You may be thinking, “that is pretty bold to call your chili the best ever.” Here’s the deal, everybody likes chili the way that they like it. Profound…we know. Almost every recipe is different in some way and people like different things in their chili. We know exactly how we like ours, so to us this is truly the best chili ever! We prefer a hearty chili over a “soupy” chili. Because of that, we don’t add any tomato juice. There are two other things that make this original chili recipe our favorite…beer and buffalo wing sauce. Yes. That is right.
Our names are Dave and Sarah, and we are addicted to Jimmy John’s.
We have to avoid talking about JJ in our house, because if we talk about it we will convince ourselves that we need to eat there ASAP. Every single thing that goes into their sandwiches is high quality, but nothing tops their chewy french bread. Oh man, just the smell of it is enough to make our stomachs growl…
Our lives were forever changed when we realized we could buy loaves of their day-old bread for just $0.50. That meant we could bring the awesomeness of JJ into our own kitchen! We’ve used them to make croutons, philly cheese steaks and our latest creation: Chipotle Chicken Sandwiches!
Perhaps we just love food too much?
