A Very Lazy Chicken Rice Vegetable Soup

   I am a very very lazy Mom. And here in Boston, we have this very cruel winter, that makes me lazier than ever. From there only comes my "very lazy chicken rice vegetable soup". Whenever I feel exhausted after a long day work, I land up ordering take-out food or pizzas. However, we, as mom, all have this guilt consciousness lurking in corner, that we are not doing enough. Hence I come up with this easy recipe of chicken rice soup (especially made for a picky-eater preschooler). Its very easy to make and now a days I have some other short-cut plans too.

    I cut the vegetables in inch size at weekend and store them for a week. I usually store different type of vegetables in separate boxes. Most cases I use Pyrex, Rubbermaid or progressive storage box. This helps me to choose the menu I want to cook whenever I need in the working weekdays. If you want to cook in half of the weekdays, as I do; this is a very good option for you. Do choose the menu before hand and keep the vegetables pre-cut with date labelled on the box wall. I also keep peeled garlic in the zip-lock bag. However I do not keep chopped tomatoes or onions stored.

  Coming back to chicken rice soup recipe again, you can choose to ignore chicken part and make same way completely vegetable rice soup. Here is the recipe.

Recipe :

1. ½ cup brown rice, washed-soaked in water  for 30 minutes (this is first step, you can start here and prepare the rest)

2.Coarsely cut onion-1 cup

3.Garlic-3-4 pieces-crushed

4.Ginger-peeled and stick size

5.Tomatoes-1 cup coarsely chopped

6.Green beans-cut in 1” size

7.Brocoli floret-cut in small chunk

8.Potato-cut in long 2” size

9.Carrot-cut in ½ “ size

10.Zuchini-1”size

11.Green peas-1/2 cup

12.Spinach -1 cup

13.  ½ cup bite size chicken breast-washed,cleaned

Cooking Direction :

1. Warm up 1 Tb spoon of oil/butter (you can play around with amount) in a flat bottom pressure cooker or flat bottom pan

2. Sizzle the oil with one cardamom (usually I crush it little bit before putting it in oil) and one 1” cinnamon stick

3. As soon as the beautiful aroma of spies comes out, add onion

4. Fry Onion for 1 minute and add veggies

5. Sauté the veggies little bit and then add chicken

6. Add ½ Tb spoon of cumin powder, coriander powder and pinch of ground black pepper and turmeric

7. Sauté veggies and chicken for 2 minutes

8. Add 1 cup of chicken broth ( you can use vegetable broth or plain water too)

9. Add salt according to taste

10. Boil them for 10 minutes

11. Add soaked brown rice with ½ cup of water

Close the lid of the pressure cooker and wait for 3 whistles. Cool it off little bit before you open the lid.

Soup is ready to serve.:)

     

Clementine Box Project

Whenever we get clementine, along with the bunch (or branch) of orange fruits... there is also a box. Usually I recycle the box. However, this time I thought we better use it for something useful and good (in this process I can vent out the energy of an enthusiastic hyperactive 5 year old). This is good project in a snow/rainy day.

  Hence comes the Clementine Plant Pot holder :

 What we need : an used clementine box, Americana Multi-surface satin paint (you can choose any brand of your choice , just make sure this should be non-toxic), brush, plastic cup, old news paper and brush

How to do it :
  1. We spread out an old news paper on our work table and put on our work cloth ( we have some worn out T-shirt for this purpose).

   2.Next we took an empty clementine Box and cleaned out all the papers/wrappers around it. We used our dry paint brush to clean up the sides little bit.

   3. A plastic cup was just we needed to pour some of our paint and next we knew we were painting.

   4. Once it was fully painted we kept it dry for 30 minutes.

   5. Now our clementine plant pot holder was ready.

     Hope you enjoy this pot holder as much as I do. Do not forget to let me know how it works for you.