Working Girl Cooks!

So I was working out on the spin bike ( I will talk about the spin bike on another post someday...it's my absolute favorite workout tool!) and I was watching the food network to take my mind off of the fact that I was super sweaty and quite uncomfortable. I was watching Rachel Ray's 30 minute meals. I love her show! This particular show was titled southwest supper and she made a sweet potato stoup. "Stoup" is her word for a soup that is thinner than a stew but much thicker than your regular soup. As I was watching this I thought, "huh, I have sweet potatoes at home and chicken! I could make this! I also had a butternut squash that I thought would be awesome in this stoup and although the recipe called for chili in adobe which I didn't have I thought I could find a substitute that would be just as good.

So I started by gathering all of my ingredients.

I preheated the pot and coated the bottom with extra virgin olive oil.

I cut the ends off of the butternut squash and peeled it with a peeler.

Then I removed the seeds and chopped it up.

The butternut squash went into the pot and got coated with oil.

Then I went to work on the sweet potatoes. I peeled them.

Then chopped them.

And added them to the pot.

I chopped up half an onion coarsely.

Then added that to the pot.

Then I added some minced garlic, Italian spices, and a basil leaf. Then gave the pot a good stir and let the vegetables roast and become nice and brown and soft.

Then I opened up a bottle of white wine. Only use wine that you would drink!

Served some for myself.

And added about a glass to the pot. I let the pot deglaze for about a minute then added four cups of water.

four teaspoons of chicken bullion. (You can substitute four cups of chicken stock if you have it, it'll probably taste better!)

three teaspoons of chili powder (this is my substitution for the adobo chili peppers.)

And one teaspoon of red pepper flakes to give it a little bit more of a kick!

Once my stoup was nice and boiling, I added the chicken and let it poach directly into the stoup for about 10 minutes.

I chopped up some green onions.

Then served the soup with a dollop of unflavored yogurt and green onions. You can use sour cream as well. Yum!

Spicy Sweet Potato and Butternut Squash Stoup with Chicken

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed
4 small sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed 1/2 large onion peeled and coarsely chopped
1tbsp minced garlic
1 tbs Italian spices 1 bay leaf
1 cup dry white wine, eyeball it
4 cups chicken stock
3/4 to 1 pound chicken tenders, cut into bite size pieces
4 scallions, white and green parts thinly sliced
1/2 cup yogurt, for garnish, optional

Heat a soup pot over medium-high heat with 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, about 2 turns of the pan.

While soup pot heats, peal and chop butternut squash. Add the butternut squash to the pot while it heats, stirring to coat the carrots in the oil. Chop and drop in sweet potato and onion. Add the garlic, Italian seasoning, and bay leaf, stir to combine. Season the veggies with salt, pepper. Cook the veggies together 1 minute. Add the wine and reduce a minute. Add the stock to the pot, cover the pot, and raise heat to high. Bring the stoup to a boil, remove the cover, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Add the cut chicken simmer 5 minutes until chicken is cooked through. Turn the heat off and add the scallions and cilantro. Serve each portion of stoup with a dollop of yogurt on top.