Chicken soup with Penne

My stomach felt really bad last week so I needed some chicken soup to eat and this is what I have prepared. I ran out of macaroni so I have substituted penne pasta. I know that penne can only be good to eat on arrabiata or any pasta meal which is rich in sauce. But I have just tried an experiment to see what penne can also do with any chicken soup.

Indeed it has no difference to macaroni in taste but the only thing is that it is harder to cook. I mean it takes longer period of time to make it aldente. Usually penne pasta takes 10-12 minutes of cooking but this one took me 15 minutes to satisfy my taste bud. I don’t like to chew on hard or half cooked pasta so I see to it that I needed those extra minutes to make it softer.
In preparing this dish, you just needed to boil your chicken first before sautéing it in garlic and onion.


Chicken soup with penne pasta


Personally, I don’t like bloody chicken which means when you cut the inner part, there are still traces of clot in between bones and fleshy part. That is why 10 minutes of boiling is convenient for me before I put cooking oil and sauté it with garlic and onions.

I also included some chicken bouillon cubes to make the taste more delicious. If there was a veggie that you can include in your chicken soup, that will be carrots but at that time I don’t have one so you won’t be seeing any. Once the chicken is done for sautéing, you need to put chicken stock or water if you don’t have any stock, then put the penne pasta.

You can add milk to this dish as long as your milk is evaporated and not condensed or powdered. But if you don’t have milk, you can substitute any quick melt cheese and that will be sufficient enough.

Nutritious Lassi Drink

Lassi is a popular drink originated in the province of Punjab, India. It is a healthy drink which consists of fresh yogurt, water, milk, sugar, selected fruits and other spices included. You can have a lot of flavors in your lassi but for me I just preferred to have plain lassi which is without any fruit flavors and spices.

I did make lassi drink because my stomach has been feeling bad for the past week. It was the water that caused it and to remedy it, I have to make some natural or ayurvedic approach as what they say here which is all natural and without any chemical treatments.

Probiotic yogurt needed to make Lassi Drink


I don’t just use ordinary yogurt bought at dahi stores. Most of these yogurts bought on local stores are rich in fat and tendency is that it is hard to digest. What I regularly buy to make lassi is a probiotic yogurt or probiotic dahi which is rich in fiber, has live bacteria that are good for digestion and help ease my condition.

Consider buying only fresh yogurt by checking the manufacture date


I am not endorsing the product brand, all I am saying is that when you do buy your fresh yogurt, consider reading the labels and the benefits one can have disregarding the price of course. What I did for making lassi was just mixing it in a blender and put sugar, pinch of salt and tablespoons of water.

Cold and Refreshing Lassi Drink



I don’t like to put too much water because I don’t like my lassi so watery, I like it creamier so I just used ample amount to make it rich and creamy and yummy. Maybe you can see on the picture that I have included lassi as my snack together with popcorn. Popcorn is a healthy snack to consider and that is why I make it a point to include it. I like to refrigerate my lassi first before drinking. It makes me feel so refreshed and it really invigorates ones feeling. Care to have some?

Pinoy Chopsuey

Later did I figure out that there are different ways countries around the world prepare their own version of Chopsuey. In America and here in India, they serve their Chopsuey with noodles that are fried first, but in my own country Philippines, when you talk about Chopsuey, it means veggies with some meat products like chicken, chicken liver, shrimp and pork that you can add in this delightful dish.

The possibility of choosing veggies in this dish is really vast although you cannot just put any veggies you like, e.i. squash, okra, drumstick, bitter gourd, round gourd and any beans (lentil). If you want to prepare this dish, you can choose veggies like cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, bokchoy or Chinese petchay, capsicum or bell peppers (red or green) in color, sweet peas or snow peas, green beans, carrot, and mushrooms.

Lacking colors like red capsicum and shrimp to make it more appealing...


It is one of the most delicious veggie meals since it is very colorful and I like the way how crisp and fresh my veggies are when Chopsuey is being served. Although in what I prepared, I did lack color since I don’t have a stock of red bell pepper and shrimp to give additional colors in it. What I just have were cauliflower, carrot, green bell peppers and cabbage. I just wish I have mushrooms there and shrimp but anyway the chicken meat and the liver gave enough justice to make it so called Chopsuey.

Of course I also used oyster sauce in my recipe and most important is to keep the sauce creamy a bit by putting corn starch and little bit of water in a mixture as the finishing touches to your cooking. But just don’t overcook your veggies. It will not be that exciting to bite capsicum if it is already soaked and the color turned darker. Even those carrots, you don’t want to eat overcooked carrots right? So just make sure your flame is kept on a medium flame and when placing those veggies, keep in mind to put the hardest first like cauliflower.

You don’t need to worry about carrot because it is much healthier to eat it half cooked than overdone. The last veggies that you will include in this dish are the capsicum since they are easy to cook. I suggest you don’t cover the lid so that the color of the veggies remains the same even if the stove is already turned off.

Vegetable Chow Mein

I had no idea of this recipe yet since I just ordered it. I do have the impression that chow mein differs from locations where chefs prepare it. What I do know is that it is a Chinese dish and it is commonly available when you order it from a Chinese restaurant.

But the thing is, I did not order it from a Chinese restaurant but an Indian restaurant that serves Chinese cuisines and I don’t know if they have given justice to this recipe or not since when I browse it online and look for pictures of what vegetable chow mein would look like, they are different varieties that showed up and the preparations vary from veggies to style of cooking. Some chow mein are dry, some are soupy and creamy which I have ordered.


Steaming goodness of Vegetable Chow Mein



I was really tempted to try what it would taste like when ordered from a local restaurant here in our place. Well, of course their usual veggies here include cabbage strips, carrot and spring onions. I was expecting they would also include some mushrooms, snow peas and broccolis but not. About the type of noodles, well the usual thing here is the egg noodle type, so it would never be like any thin noodles or flat ramen type.

There goes their noodle doodle...



It tasted a bit like chopsuey but with noodles. I just like it when it was delivered home hot and fresh, still steaming with its goodness for the price of Rs 80.00. I immediately transferred it to a bowl and mixed it well so that the noodles and veggies would blend well, sorry no chop sticks included. Anyway if I have to do my own chow mein, I would definitely include those veggies I have mentioned above. If I have to rate this recipe that the chef cooked, I would give it 6 out of 10.

Southern Fried Chicken

I was thinking what to do with the remaining chicken I have since hubby prepared curry before. I don’t like to cook another curry out of it so I said why not fry it but not the usual way that I would fry my chicken.

So I came to research about this recipe and I tried my own version even if I would not exactly prepare it the way they do since first of all I don’t have a deep fryer and second I don’t have on hand buttermilk which I just substituted low fat skimmed milk and put vinegar in it. Anyway the taste was a passing grade and for me I can say that another day has passed and I did my very best to come up with this recipe.


My very own Southern Fried Chicken



I also don’t have Tabasco sauce or chili sauce so I improvised another substitute which is the sweet and hot tomato ketchup that I have. Another substitution I made was ginger garlic paste instead of the original garlic powder to be included in the flour mixture. I didn’t include my ginger garlic paste into the flour mixture but to the marinated mix so that the chicken would sip that flavor. The more you soak your chicken into your marinated mixture the better. I only soaked the chicken for about 5 hours and at least it was that tasty.

Another thing I substituted for an ingredient was paprika, to give color to your chicken this is needed but since I don’t have it in my stock, I just simply used chili powder although it didn’t really make the chicken hot and chili. So friends, here is the instruction on how to prepare Southern Fried Chicken:

For marinating your chicken:

1 cup buttermilk (if you don’t have just use low fat milk and 1 tbsp. vinegar)- leave for 5 minutes
Salt
Ground black pepper
¼ cup Tabasco sauce
1 tbsp. Ginger-garlic paste (optional)

It’s up to you how long you marinate your chicken, the longer the better. After marinating your chicken you can now, prepare the second mixture for your chicken.

Dipping the chicken:

1 egg
Salt
Ground black pepper
Put 6-7 tbsp. of your marinated mixture and mix the ingredient above before dipping your chicken

Flour mixture:

This will be the last procedure once you have dipped the chicken into the egg mixture; you need to roll it on this flour mixture. Be sure to double dip and double coat your chicken pieces.

1 cup flour
Salt
Garlic powder
Paprika (what I put here was chili powder)- this is for the color of your chicken


Place them in a dry pan to get the chicken dry first and heat the pan. If you have a deep fryer the better since the chicken will be well cooked. But if you’re using a pan, make sure your oil covers those chicken pieces so that they will be cooked well. Cooked the chicken meat for about 8-15 pieces depending on the size. If it was a bigger piece, 14-15 minutes will do best. Hope you enjoy this crunchy delight of Southern Fried Chicken.