If you are needing a mess free and completely nutritional meal all in one plate, this chicken tortilla soup for crock pot is for you. I have been making this recipe for quite some time. I absolutely love how juicy and flavorful it is. This chicken tortilla soup for crockpot also allows you the freedom to set up the meal, walk away, run errands, go to work, and come back to the most colorful, and nutritional meal. Warm and ready to eat. 

 

 

The reason why we love to make chicken tortilla soup in the crock pot so much is because it takes only about 15 minutes to prepare all the ingredients and gather them together. Then I can walk away for a few hours and know that dinner is preparing all by itself. I often leave early in the mornings, or run errands all afternoon and take my children to sports. By the time we come home we are not only ALL  tired, but also ravenous. All we want is to eat right away. During the winter months especially we like to eat warm meals. 

I also am not a fan of eating fast food. Children’s young bodies are still in the developmental stages where they growing. Their bones are absorbing calcium, and their body needs nutrients to develop. Fro their brains to their heart. It’s important they eat right. Learning how to eat healthy from a young age will also set a habit foundation for them to look back to for the rest of their lives. 

By simmering all the food together for hours in the crock pot,  the broth becomes extremely flavorful and also nutritious. This recipe also calls for different vegetables. Tomatoes, corn, onions, and the avocado as toppings make it a complete meal with a good amount of vitamins and protein. 

We like to serve it with some tortilla chips and sometimes even  sprinkle it with some cheese. Aside from that everyone gobbles it up real fast before running off to shower and relax for the evening. 

For added flavor we also like to top it with some fresh cilantro leaves. I do so as a garnish, too. We place a few leaves on the side of each bowl after pouring the soup and voila, a pretty picturesque and colorful meal is ready.

 

 

I first discovered this recipe when we had our fourth child. That was the first time in our lives that we started being extremely busy in the afternoon. Chasing after our toddlers, and running everywhere for sports and music activities. Having a new born child also made cooking in the kitchen seem really time consuming. Trying to do it 3 times a day was now starting to feel like a full time job. 

I have the fondest memories of this chicken tortilla soup for crock pot meal slowly cooking, while the kids do their homework around the kitchen island on some afternoons. When I discovered this recipe we used to live in what we call our gray home. Every day our oldest two children had 1 sheet of math homework from school that they needed to complete. Luckily they rarely complained about their homework even though we did it almost every day right after a  long day at school so that they wouldn’t get tired. 

Tired kids would usually complain a lot more about their homework. And by the time I was tired too, that would have turned into a disaster.

I knew during that stage I needed to simplify our meal planning a little. I didn’t want to compromise health and eating a meal made from scratch with fresh ingredients.

The beauty of crock pot meals is that it allows one to safely step away, and the longer the meal cooks the better it will actually taste.

This recipe has also been a life saver many times when I have had friends over and I needed a meal that wouldn’t create a mess in the kitchen, and wouldn’t require me to be tied to the stove up until meal time. 

As a busy mom I love to prepare meals that don’t require using different pans and kitchen gadgets. Couple that with a messy stove. Nope, some days I just can’t take that.

In order to prepare this dish we actually use our Breville (LINK) cooker. It’s a machine that is both a pressure cooker and a crock pot. But this appliance also has many other built-in options. 

You can sauté, steam, cook rice, and reduce. I love that it allows me to sauté right before cooking a meal In the slow cooker. Regular slow cookers, don’t have this optio that allow you to do it all in one appliance.

Most slow cookers call for recipes that require sautéing on the stove in a pan prior to placing the meal in the crockpot. That is the case for most meals with roasts, vegetables, and even chili recipes. Onions usually also require sautéing before adding them to the crock pot with the rest of the ingredients. 

With the Breville I don’t need to start by using a pan. I start directly within the alliance where I can fry the onions and then add the rest of the ingredients and set it up a a slow cooker. 

Because I also like to freeze my chicken, I can often pressure cook it for a few minutes any time I am dong a recipe that calls for poultry. For this reason this appliance has saved me so much time and headaches. 

This recipe luckily is truly simple. I do precook the chicken if it’s frozen by pressure cooking it in my Breville, or if I want the meal to be ready faster than usual. But most times that is not the case so I can just slow cook everything all the way through. 

Enjoy and don’t forget to check out some of my other favorite meals with my Breville appliance such as my favorite 15 minute Minestrone Recipe which you can find HERE. 

 

If you are looking or a good and quick soup to help you get the nutrients you need, this minestrone soup will not disappoint.

I was recently listening to a nutritionist speak about what are the main nutrients that we should include in our diets. Among some of her top recommendations were leafy green, protein rich foods such as beans and legumes, avocados, eggs, and lots of fruits with antioxidants. 

In a world where we often toss back and forth between protein, carbs, and fat as our main source for sustenance. We often forget how important It is to eat more instead of what gives our bodies the right nutrition. That is vitamins, minerals, etc. 

Our gut and our brain health are very closely correlated. A brain that doesn’t have the right nutrients cannot function as well. I loved learning that when we are properly nourished we also feel more motivated. 

I go through stages where I love to eat salads everyday, and days where I don’t. This minestrone recipe is perfectly in between. The kale provides the leafy greens, followed by the tomatoes and onions, coupled in the end with the beans for a very healthy source of protein.

Kale is also a great source of Vitamin vitamins A, K, B6 and C, calcium, potassium, copper and manganese. Vitamin K is really not a vitamin that we talk a lot about when it comes to health. 

According to a Harvard study, Vitamin K helps to make various proteins that are needed for blood clotting and the building of bones.

Because I need to bribe my kids with something they like in order for them to eat their veggies, we sometimes add a slice or two of crumbled bacon to the top. I cook 1 pack of 12 slices of bacon from a local farmer in the oven. That makes it 2 slices per family member in our family. We like to bake it at 375 for about 30 minutes or until crunchy. Then we can crumble it or just serve it as is. The bacon smokey flavor couples really well with this minestrone soup. 

Another great side idea is to pair it with a loaf of ciabatta bread. I buy ours fresh from the store. I warm it up in the oven for a few minutes right before dinner. The crust turns really crunchy and the aroma of freshly baked bread comes right back out. It’s like eating freshly baked bread without the extra work.

I took inspiration for this recipe from Giada De Laurentis. 

I also do cook this recipe in the pressure cooker. Yet this minestrone could be easily cooked in the slow cooker as well. I like to make it pressure cooker because it’s basically ready in 15 minutes. The crock pot would require a few hours of simmering in order for all the flavors to infuse together and cook properly. But both options are great.

Have I convinced you yet to invest in a pressure cooker? It truly is a game changer. I purchased mine as an electrical one. It not only has all the settings pre registers, but the one I got also doubles as a steamer, rice cooker, and crock pot. I basically was able to get rid of so many appliances and have so much room in my kitchen cabinets now. I use the BREVILLE one. It’s very user friendly and does not require me to memorize how long to cook what. The settings are titled as simply as poultry, meat, soup, stew, and chili. All I do is press a button whether I am slow cooking, sautéing, or pressure cooking and the machine does the rest. 

HERE ARE THREE DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THIS FUN KITCHEN APPLIANCE AT 3 DIFFERENT PRICE POINTS: (I have purchased the second one. When I purchased it this brand had not come up with the multiple versions that are available now.)

I love a good potato soup. And if it’s dairy free and vegan that makes us even happier.

This Vegan Leek Potato Soup it’s delicate in flavor, but also a comforting meal for winter days. Our older daughter often says it’s her favorite meal for dinner. It’s so simple to make. I am surprised that one of my kids requests it so often. Although I am learning that the majority of my kids favorite meals tend to be the simplest.

I love that this soup has leeks because that means there are some extra vitamins and vegetables combined with the potatoes. It’s also considered a vegan potato leek soup. Putting the word vegan in front of any recipe makes it sound super healthy already.

I also love that it gives us an excuse to buy leeks because they are such an obscure vegetable in a way, but I feel like a super advanced chef when I cook with more exotic ingredients that aren’t always in my pantry. Even if that means just leeks some days.

At our home we omit the dairy mostly and we like to add parmesan cheese on top while it’s still hot. Reminds me of my childhood in Italy. We loved to grate parmesan cheese on foods because it added such an amazing flavor.

By omitting the dairy I was able to tweak this recipe and come up with the perfect potato leek vegetarian soup.

I also love that this soup originates from France. And many chefs have busted out the famous  potato leek soup. Ina Garten and Julia Child all have busted out this recipe at some point in history.

WHAT GOES WELL WITH LEEK AND POTATO SOUP?

We love to pair it with rustic and crunchy French bread. We love to buy a fresh load from the tore and then warm it up in the oven at 350 for a few minutes while we dish out the soup.

We love to sprinkle our soups with Parmesan cheese.

Another great option is to pair this soup with a side of meat. A great way to counterbalance meals with meat since they are heavy in calories, it’s to pari them with a vegetable dish. In this case the soup. We love to make steak Milanese. they are breaded super thin fried steaks that are quick to make.

Another easy option is to pair your potato leek soup with bacon. We like to cut it into small ½ inch long strips and fry it. Then we sprinkle it on top of the soul as well. 

HOW DO YOU MAKE LEEK AND POTATO SOUP FROM SCRATCH?

Find out below with the recipe and instructions.

Original recipe can be found here.

Fish! Such a sensitive subject at our home.

Our household is kind of divided in half when it comes to this one.

I grew up absolutely hating fish. I didn’t like the smell of it or looking at it at the store.

The street markets in Italy often would sell it in a different section that was in a semiclosed building. It would lay out there under glass fridges, right at my eye sight, eye balls staring into space, with ice cubes beneath.

The freezers would then slowly drain the fish smelling water from the ice melting, into the streets, which would make those places permanently smell like bad fish.

There were some supermarkets where they would sell lobsters, octopuses, calamari, crabs, catfish, mussels, swordfish, sardines and many more while perfectly preserved and still whole. That was actually amazing to look at.

To me no matter how fresh the fish was, I could not stand the taste of it, though.

Not to mention the tiny bones that were a chocking hazard.

It seemed more dangerous to eat than to leave it alone.

It wasn’t until we moved to the Canary Islands that I started to love fish.

Fishermen would catch it fresh and sell it at the port early mornings.

My mom would fry it or bake it at home. That was a different game all together.

When I became pregnant with our first son I knew I wanted to eat well and balanced for him, so I made it a goal to eat fish ONCE A WEEK!

I knew that fish has good Omega’s. The stuff that makes you smart, haha. It helps your brain for sure.

Too much of it when pregnant is bad, but a good amount is much needed.

Lucky for us, that summer we were living in Anchorage, Alaska. We found a restaurant that made the best fried salmon.

For the first time I would actually crave fish.

Back to my childhood, there were two types of fish that I did always like. Mostly because I didn’t know that they were in fact fish.

One of them was tuna. I liked it because in Italy it’s stored in oil and it’s chunky. So when you open a can of tuna the meat is actually pink and it’s not blended like mush, it’s like actual chunky pieces. I thought it was meat so I loved it.

I did change my love for it the day I found out it wasn’t.

But another delicacy for some reason I truly enjoyed was octopus.

Whether fried or pickled, which I have never found in the US yet, it was just not scary to me for some reason.

Now back to the present day. I have three kids who like fish and one who doesn’t.

Truth is, when none of them knew what was what, they all liked it.

I always made it a point to have fish sticks in my refrigerator when the kids were little as a better alternative to nuggets.

My kids also can handle fried fish very well. Particularly halibut or cod.

Then there is salmon. I have called it pink chicken for my kids. Maybe because of that, they all love it.

I like to bake my salmon with tahini sauce, ghee, some garlic salt and parsley.

I find it such a healthy protein. I love when the kids eat it.

We did fish eggs too when the kids were younger whenever we ate sushi. We called it candy and they happily loved to eat sushi regardless.

Shrimp pasta is something that David also really likes.

I don’t know what diet my kids will choose to adopt as adults. But I learned to cook by watching my mom so now I like to do the same.

I also know that it may not be appealing to them seeing me deal with raw ingredients, but the alternative is that they may be so detached from where meat comes from that they’ll eat it like apples.

So for that reason even if they don’t love the sight of it, I want them to see how it’s prepared and where it comes from.

Now it doesn’t mean I’ll bring a cow and gut it at home. I used to watch my grandmother do that who lived on a farm.

My grandfather raised cattles in Italy. He lived next door to us. While he would send the cows straight to the butcher so we never had to witness anything happening, I did grow up seeing food at its rawest.

In a way it hasn’t made me want to go Vegan, but it has reminded me that to sustain large populations it’s important to eat it sparingly.

My mom in fact never cooked with a lot of meat. We opted for cheese and beans often as a source of protein.

I have learned to cook a meal for 6 with one chicken breast now.

I always add some pasta, or quinoa, or extra veggies to any meal I make that calls for meat to divide up the amount of meat we place in it. It has allowed us to not cut it out completely, but rather have it in smaller portions.

Now back to octopus. It’s a tougher meat to cook at home I’m not gonna lie. But it’s so refined. I learned to love it because it’s often eaten in Italy and Spain and I have lived in both places.

I GOT MINE STRAIGHT IN THE MAIL. YOU CAN SHOP FOR A VARIETY OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF FISH ON THE PANE PESCA WEBSITE DIRECTLY. It was delivered fresh and arrived in perfect condition at my front door. On the website hey have anything from calamary, clams, shrimp, and other assorted varieties.

My favorite way to make octopus is by creating something that in Italian we call “pastella.” It’s an outer layer that I make mixing some flour, garlic, salt, and egg. It’s a batter that is similar to a pancake batter in consistency. I then dip the octopus in it after washing it and pat drying it.

Then off to the air frier or the pan

I made it with little Zara. She was so intrigued by it and not at all scared. She loved sprinkling flour on it, and salt, and was so eager to watch the whole process.

Octopus does best when fried slowly and for a longer time. It becomes tender. And the coating will become nice and gold.

 

Luckily the meat I bought was already cleaned so so well. It couldn’t have been prepared better. All I had to do was just drain it and dry it and Voila!

For directions on how to cook octopus you can find an awesome article here.

You can find a couple of recipes that I followed HERE and HERE.

Octopus supplied by PANE PESCA USA.