Crock-Pot Chicken & Right Rice Soup

Like a 45-year-old mom, I love a crock-pot meal. This Chicken & Right Rice soup as SO much flavor for being a simple crock-pot soup. I love how the Right Rice is a nod to the texture of noodles in chicken noodle soup and the shape of rice like in chicken & rice soup. It’s hearty, grain free, and has great protein from the chicken and bone broth. Enjoy!

Crock-Pot Chicken & Right Rice Soup
yields 4-5 servings

Ingredients:
1 lb chicken breasts
1 cup carrots, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
4 cups chicken bone broth (stock or regular broth will do)
3/4 cup original Right Rice*
salt and pepper
1/4 cup of fresh Italian flat leaf parsley, chopped
1-2 springs fresh rosemary, chopped
parmesan rind if you have one

Directions:
Lightly coat your crock-pot with a nonstick spray. Arrange the chicken breasts along the bottom of your pot. Add the carrots, celery, and garlic on top. Season with salt and pepper. Pour in 4 cups of chicken bone broth. Note, your rice will go in later.

Cover and cook on low for 4 hours or high for 2 1/2 hours. After the initial cooking, add the 3/4 cup of dry, uncooked Right Rice, 2 tbsp. parsley and 1 tbsp. rosemary, and continue to cook for 2 hours on low or 1 hour on high**. If you have a leftover parmesan rind, now is the time to add it. The parmesan rind gives it an extra level of flavor, but is not necessary!

After the cooking time, remove the chicken from the crock-pot and place it on a plate or cutting board. Using two forks, shred the chicken and then place it back in the crock-pot. Add additional broth or water if your soup has over thickened from the Right Rice.

Ladle into bowls and garnish with a sprinkle of remaining parsley, rosemary, and fresh cracked black pepper. The soup is good to last in the fridge for up to 5 days.

*The Right Rice can be substituted for brown rice, orzo, or Israeli couscous.
**Cooking times are relative to how hot your crock-pot cooks. I prefer cooking on high for a shorter amount of time. 3 1/2 hours of total cooking time was perfect for me! Check your chicken occasionally to make sure you aren’t overcooking it.

Annie

Bites of My Life

There is nothing better than a good fall weekend. The temperatures are still warm during the day, but it’s cooling off in the mornings in evenings in Dallas. Perfect for a walk in the neighborhood to get a decaf almond milk latte and scope out everyone’s pumpkin loot on their porches. Followed by an afternoon of college football and food to match. Last week and weekend were some of those really great fall-filled days.

Upcoming this weekend is one of my favorite fall weekends of the year, OU vs. Texas! Wishing everyone good fall days ahead and boomer sooner.

-Last week’s Weekday Rice Bowl made its way to TAB, did you see it?
-Kiwis and pears are my “it” fruits rn.
-Fresh off my trip to Vail and more importantly Mountain Standard, their insane pimento cheese with bacon jam was still high on my mind. Credit to Peter for opting we try making our own when I suggested buying some. We halved this recipe.
-Packed our bacon jam with Kuby’s pimento cheese and picnicked at the Dallas Arboretum for one of their Cool Thursday concerts.
-After talking about it for months, I finally made it to Il Bracco thanks to my trusty eating partner. Easily slid into my top 5 favorite restaurants in Dallas.
-Skip the last drink, order dessert instead. A trusty new motto that included some delish Italian cheesecake.
-Pigs in a blanket, never not a crowd favorite.
-Smash burgers on the flat top and a revolving door of friends watching football on Saturday, was a Saturday well spent.
-There is no pumpkin bread better than my family’s pumpkin bread, but I had high hopes for The Defined Dish’s grain-free recipe. I was surprisingly able to salvage it from this burnt top, but it was not my fave.

Annie

Sweet Potato Hummus

This is potentially a dish you already have all of the the ingredients for! I’m a little overly obsessed with tahini. It’s up there next to almond butter me, I drizzle it on everything. Tahini is one of the main ingredients for hummus, but unlike traditional hummus, this recipe swaps chickpeas for a baked sweet potato. The finished product is so smooth and creamy, I licked clean every bowl and spatula after whipping it up.

Sweet Potato Hummus

Ingredients:
1 medium sweet potato
¼ cup tahini
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
juice of 1/2 a lime
pinch of salt

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Scrub clean your sweet potato then with a fork, poke holes all over the sweet potato. Place on a roasting pan and bake for about 45 minutes until a knife slips in easily and the inside feels tender. Cut the potato in half and set aside to cool until you can handle it.

Scrape the flesh of the sweet potato out from the skin and place in your food processor. Add in the tahini, garlic, lime juice, and salt. Pulse until smooth and creamy, stopping to scrape the sides as needed. Transfer to a bowl, and top with a drizzle of nice olive oil, flaky salt, and paprika or red chili flakes if you like spice. Serve with raw veggies or crackers.

The hummus will last in an airtight container in the fridge for up to one week.

Annie

12 Halloween Inspired Recipes

When you aren’t eating fun-size pieces of candy, try one of these 12 spirited recipes. All perfect for you Halloween celebrations in some way!

1. Halloween Candy Compost Cookies
Doesn’t get more Halloween than these! Make them for your Halloween celebration or bake them after the holiday for a way to use up all the leftover candy you have lying around.

2. Double Chocolate Pumpkin Seed Cookies
For when you want to be festive, but aren’t a pumpkin person. These cookies use pepitas (pumpkin seeds) instead of actual pumpkin puree.

3. Pumpkin Bread
This is my family’s tried and true recipe. There’s not a better pumpkin bread out there, I’m sure of it.

4. Pumpkin Pecan White Chocolate Cookies
These cookies > candy this year.

5. Pumpkin Green Smoothie
The easiest way to sneak in some greens on a day centered around treats!

6. Pumpkin Spice Bulletproof Coffee
Fuel for your long day of tricking and treating!

7. Upside Down Pumpkin Crumb Cake
This recipe comes from my two friends Madison + Peyton, formerly Identical Ideals. These two actually re-designed my site!

8. Pumpkin Curry
It’s supposed to be cold in this area on Halloween. A bowl of pumpkin curry sounds like the best way to cozy up on Halloween night.

9. Halloween Slutty Brownies
Layer of chocolate chip cookie dough, a layer of seasonal orange oreos, and topped with a layer of gooey brownie. What could be better?

10. The Best Pumpkin Soup
Soup baked in a pumpkin? Sold.

11. Pumpkin Dip
My mom used to make this dip when I was little. It was the BEST treat to come home to after school. Now let me just add this to my list of TAB recipes that need to be updated…Killer filter Annie…

12. Creepy Crawling CCC’s
I just took my classic Perfect CCC’s and made little legs on the chocolate chips to make them look like spiders. Before baking place one chocolate chip point side down on the top of the ball of dough. I used Toll House dark chocolate chips for the bodies because they are little bigger than semi-sweet chips. Sprinkle with Maldon Salt and bake as normal. Melt 1/4 cup chocolate chips (helps if you add a tiny bit of ghee or coconut oil to the chocolate to make it easier to design with). Once the cookies have cooled, using a toothpick, dip the toothpick in the melted chocolate and then draw on three little legs on each side of the chocolate chip to replicate a spider!

Happy Halloween!
Annie

Bites of My Life

Fall has finally made it’s way to Texas. I’m soaking up the cozy days, but still trying to get outside as much as possible. After a decent work week, I got to celebrate one of my best friends birthday, then headed up to OKC for a wedding shower. Leeeeeetle bump in the road when my tire pressure light came on and I found out I needed 3 new tires after only being on the road for 30 minutes. But kudos to Pep Boys for getting me home safely. Now it’s time for Halloweek!! Halloween gets some hate, but I’ve loved it since I was little. If you need some last minute costume inspo, take a bite of my food themed costumes the past few years.

-I’ve had this recipe saved to make for forever. Y’all know I love an egg baked into something. Shakshuka, a sweet potato, and now an acorn squash! Just cut the squash in half and scrape out the seeds. Cut a little off the bottom so the squash halves stands up straight. Roast with olive oil, salt, pepper and a little cinnamon for 45 minutes. Crack two eggs into the well of the squash and bake for another 15-20 minutes. Top with hot sauce and enjoy.
-Kombucha and a dish of chocolate chips. The ultimate dessert when I’m trying not to ruin a day of healthy eating.
-Turmeric Chicken Zoodle Soup hit the blog with a refresh last week and I loved having it to eat on all week. Wifi was out at my co-working space, so my make-shift standing desk (kitchen counter) at home, yummy soup and Gilmore Girls in the background made for a cozy work from home day.
-The new CB2 opened just a stone’s throw away from me and it. is. gorgeous. I now want to redo my entire apartment with the money I don’t have.
-Wasabi peas are nostalgic for me. Where are my KKG 7-girl roommates at? We used to have wasabi peas stocked in our room in the sorority house. I got a bag to snack on while I was shopping at Central Market and it immediately took me back to sophomore year!
-My good friend in Dallas, Caroline has started a monthly supper club, getting together all the girls from different groups she knows together for dinner. It was the perfect way to meet more people in this city and honestly just so fun. We did a salad bar style meal and each brought a different topping. Despite lettuce being the main event I still somehow managed to devour 5 cookies and copious amounts of cheese.
-Had a hankering to bake something late Thursday night. I needed it to include ingredients I already had and I wanted it to be relatively healthy. I found Pey’s snickerdoodle muffin recipe from @choosingbalance. They were paleo, GF and had just enough sweetness. They also only made 6 which was perfect for me and few to share.
-A sleepover themed birthday party for princess Olivia. Honestly the most ideal cozy Friday night in our PJ’s with pizza, wine and junk food.
-Quick trip home to celebrate Trinian and Carson!

Annie