Pulled Chicken Soup

So I made last night's pulled chicken into soup tonight.  It's almost a chicken chili, but with more of a smoky barbecue flavor.

Recipe:
1 cup Chicken Broth
1 Tomato, peeled and seeded
1 teaspoon Barbecue Seasoning (same as used on the chicken)
2-3 teaspoons Cilantro or Parsley
3 oz. Pulled Chicken

Heat the chicken broth over medium heat.  Chop the peeled tomato and add it to the chicken broth.  Add seasoning.  Cook 5-7 minutes.  Puree with immersion blender.

Add chicken and simmer for 8-10 minutes.  Serve.

Like I said, it's kind of a chicken barbecue chili.  Very flavorful and spicy, perfect on a cold and rainy day like today.

Pulled Chicken

Here's another dish that I recently modified to be hCG diet friendly.

Recipe:
2 Chicken Breasts
2 tablespoons Barbecue seasoning (I use Penzey's BBQ 3000)
1 tablespoon Chili or Taco seasoning (I use Penzey's Chili 9000)
1 cup Water
3/4 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
Sea Salt

Season chicken breasts liberally, and grill or pan fry until done (I use a little electric grill).
Transfer chicken to a cutting board.  Using two forks, shred the chicken into small pieces.
In a shallow pan, bring water and apple cider vinegar to a boil.  Add shredded chicken.  Add more barbecue seasoning if desired.  Salt to taste, if necessary.  Simmer for 8-10 minutes and serve.

Delicious!  I eat mine in a lettuce wrap, but it would also be good in a sandwich or taco.  It's very flavorful and juicy, you'd never guess that it has no sugar and no added fat!

Waldorf Salad

This recipe is pretty much out of the booklet I got when I started the hCG diet.  It's quick, easy, and pretty tasty.

Recipe:

2 ounces Chicken (cooked)
1 stalk Celery
1/2 Apple
Sea salt, lemon juice, and seasoning.

Chop the chicken into small pieces.  Dice the celery.  Chop the apple.  Combine the chicken, celery, and apple together, sprinkle with sea salt and lemon juice, season as desired.  Mix until well combined and serve.

Tasty!  And a good way to use up chicken leftovers.  I have a container that I put all of my little extra bits of chicken in when I'm measuring out my mealtime portion, so I had chicken from 2 or 3 different occasions in there.  But, chopped up fine and mixed with other things, it wasn't really noticeable.

And again, for mixing, I just put everything into a lidded bowl and shook it, so this took less than 5 minutes to throw together.

Fish Chowder

I recently made the mistake of buying some frozen cod fillets.  Now, I love fish.  I love all kinds of fish and I love fish prepared all kinds of ways.  I even like cod, which isn't the most flavorful or interesting of fish.  But these were just...subpar to say the least.

Instead of being flaky, tender, and flavorful these came out tough, dry, and bland.  There were 3 of these things and they always came out bad, no matter what I did to them.  So with the final one I made soup, and it's actually not bad and I'd like to try it again with higher quality fish.

Recipe:

1 Tomato (or 1 can of diced tomatoes, do not drain)
1 cup Chicken Broth (omit if using canned tomatoes)
1 fillet of Cod (or other white fish)
Sea salt and seasoning

In a medium saucepan, bring chicken broth (or canned tomatoes) to a boil.  (If using a fresh tomato) Peel and seed tomato, chop roughly, and add to hot chicken broth.

Using a blender (immersion or otherwise) puree the tomato and chicken broth.  Return to heat and season to taste.

Place the fish in the broth and simmer for a few minutes.  Remove fish from soup and flake it apart.  Return fish to broth, simmer 5 minutes and serve.

Considering the poor quality of the fish I had to use, this was actually pretty good.  The cod gave a good flavor to the broth, and the fish itself didn't really detract from the soup, although there were a couple of larger pieces and those were tough and dry (in soup even!).

Again, this was good in general, and I'll try it again when I get some better fish.  And I'm sticking to fresh.

Celery & Shrimp Salad

Here's something I made for myself for lunch recently.  It's super easy, especially if you have precooked shrimp around.

Recipe:

3.5 oz. (approximately 9) Shrimp (I used precooked)
2 oz. (1 large stalk) Celery
1 teaspoon Apple Cider Vinegar
1 teaspoon Lemon Juice
Sea salt
Herbs/seasonings (I used Mural of Flavor)

Dice celery.  Add apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, sea salt and desired seasonings.  Toss to coat.
Chop shrimp, add to celery and toss to coat.

I have a set of lidded prep bowls so I just threw everything in one of those and shook it, so this whole thing took about 5 minutes.  For those not on the hCG diet, this would make a nice refreshing side salad.

I really enjoyed this, it has a nice mix of textures with the shrimp and raw celery, and as far as the flavor you can pretty much do whatever you want with this.  I decided I wanted something citrusy and sweet, which is why I went for the lemon juice and an herb blend.

So, a tasty lunch in less than 5 minutes and under 100 calories.  Woo!