Creamy Italian Chicken Tomato Soup

In the wintertime, I love enjoying a nice soup for dinner. One of my favorite soups is tomato soup with grilled cheese. I used to rely solely on the canned tomato soup, but have recently been making my own Tomato Bisque, which I just love. So, when I found this recipe on my friend's paleo board on Pinterest, I decided that it was a recipe that I wanted to try. It has the word Italian in the title, so I figured my husband would be up to trying it. Plus, it is a crock pot recipe - I love meals that I can put together in the crock pot in the morning and they are ready to eat when I get home at night.

I don't follow a paleo diet, nor do I know the requirements of a paleo friendly recipe, but I can tell you that this recipe is very tasty and reasonably low in calories. I used Lite Coconut milk, vs the full fat, and a serving was about 150 calories according to my recipe software.

We enjoyed the soup with a salad and some sliced Italian bread, but I could easily see including grilled cheese as a side to the soup.

Creamy Italian Chicken Tomato Soup
Serves: 6

Ingredients:
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 small onion chopped
2 cloves garlic minced
1 (14-ounce) can Coconut Milk
1 (14-ounce) can diced tomatoes including juice
1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce
1 cup water
2 chicken bouillon
1 1/2 tablespoons Italian seasoning
1 tablespoon basil
sea salt (to taste)
ground black pepper (to taste)


Directions:

Combine everything but the chicken in your crockpot and stir. Add the chicken. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Remove chicken and shred. Return to crock pot.

Serve.

Disclaimer

Ravioli with Tomato Basil Cream Sauce

Recently, I came across a recipe that sounded really yummy. It used a jar of sauce and then it was kicked up a notch with the addition of other items. Unfortunately, it called for sun-dried tomato Alfredo sauce, which was not available in my stores. Since it sounded so tasty, I decided to do some improvising and make my own sun-dried tomato Alfredo sauce. The family enjoyed it - although my son, who will eat tomatoes right from the garden, picked out the fresh diced tomatoes. This is a definite keeper - it is an easy to make, tasty, quick dinner option for a busy night.

1 pkg frozen Cheese Ravioli
1 jar Light Alfredo Sauce
3 sun-dried tomatoes (6 halves)
2 tbsp white wine
2 medium tomatoes, diced
1 tbsp basil
Parmesan cheese

Prepare ravioli according to package directions.

Steep the sun-dried tomatoes in warm water, then drain. Use kitchen shears to cut the tomatoes into small pieces.

Pour the Alfredo sauce into a saucepan. Add the wine to the pasta jar, recap and shake well. Add to the saucepan, along with the sun-dried tomatoes. Cook over medium low heat. Add the diced tomatoes and basil. Stir to combine. Continue heating until heated thoroughly.

Toss the sauce with the pasta and serve with Parmesan cheese.

Disclaimer

Chicken Bruschetta

When I looked at the calendar last weekend, I noticed that our Saturday was rather open, so I suggested that we do a dinner with friends. We had two families able to join us. I was debating between some favorite standby recipes or trying a new one that I had found when I was on the search for a coupon. I decided to go with the new recipe for Bruschetta Chicken. I found the recipe on Hunt's website and made some adjustments.

Bruschetta Chicken
1 can tomato sauce (15 ounce)
2 cloves garlic minced
2 cans petite diced tomatoes (14.5 ounce)
2 tsp dried basil
2 c shredded Italian blend cheese
2# chicken breasts
1 1/4 cups croutons, crushed slightly

Drain the juice from the diced tomatoes. Pour the juice into your skillet over medium heat and add garlic. Once garlic begins to brown, add the tomato sauce to the pan.

Add the basil and 1 cup of cheese to the tomatoes. Set aside.

Pound chicken breasts and cut each piece in two. Place into sauce and top with tomato/cheese/basil mixture. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and cover. Cook for 15 minutes.

Top with croutons and remaining cheese. Allow to cook for another minute to melt the cheese.

Based on the recipe software that I have, assuming 8 servings, there are about 200 calories per serving. The sauce was delicious and was excellent soaked up with the Italian bread that we were enjoying.


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