Chicken Stew with Turnips and Mushrooms from Eating Well Magazine

Chicken Stew with Turnip and Mushrooms

I love fall. Hot weather isn't something I do well with and most of the summer I stay indoors. Growing up in Seattle it was never overly hot and the humidity was low. Then I moved to West Virginia. The humidity and heat almost did me in the first summer. It didn't help that we had a heat wave and the day my husband and I got married it was almost 100 (and yes my husband and I met and got married in only 11 months - sometimes things just fall into place). Fall is a total other story. I love fall in my state. The leaves are beautiful here and the weather is mild. Plus it means lots of soups, stews, and chili. It is by far my favorite time of the year. Tonight I tried a new recipe for Chicken Stew with Turnips and Mushrooms from the October 2013 issue of Eating Well magazine.

Sculpture Ritter Park Huntington, WV

This recipe has 14 ingredients. It takes 45 minutes of total time, all of which is active and makes 6 servings. I only made a few modifications to the original recipe. First, I used baby kale. I was so happy to have found  washed and ready to eat baby kale at the store this week. It's a new item and I scooped it up. So much easier than washing and cutting regular kale. In order to have the turnips fully cooked it took approximately 10 minutes more than the recipe suggested. I really don't like the texture of undercooked turnips. I served the stew with homemade Irish soda bread.

Bridge Ritter Park Huntington, WV

My whole family enjoyed this stew. The flavor was great and the fact that it had mushrooms was the selling point for my two boys. They are both obsessed with mushrooms. The stew was perfect for a cool evening and serving it with Irish soda bread was a nice combination since the bread could sop up the stew. This is definitely a recipe I would make again. If you aren't a fan of turnips this recipe would also work well with potatoes, sweet potatoes or parsnips.

For the recipe go to Chicken Stew with Turnip and Mushrooms.

Chicken Stew with Turnip and Mushrooms

Recipe Type: Main

Summary:

A filling chicken stew recipe with baby kale, turnips and mushrooms. Perfect for fall and winter!

Preparation Time: 0h, 15m

Cooking Time: 0h, 30m

Total Time: 0h, 45m

Yield: Serves 6

Creamy Turnip Soup

I love soup. There is something very comforting about sitting down with a nice hot bowl of great homemade soup. Growing-up my mother made a ton of soup. As I have talked about before we never had a lot of money so my mother did the most with what we had. We were always getting garden vegetables from friends and my mother would make delicious soup from them. While most kids would turn up their noises at turnips and parsnips, I feel in love with these root vegetables. My mother could turn a hated vegetable into something spectacular. A basic great soup is something to be savored. I am lucky that my two boys will pretty much try any type of food I put in front of them. I started giving them all the foods that my husband and I eat when they were still toddlers so they have never had a fear of new foods. I think this is an important way to teach your kids not to be afraid of trying new foods and new experiences in general. Recently I tried a new recipe for Creamy Turnip Soup from the December issue of Eating Well magazine, which looked like a great winter soup.

This recipe has 11 ingredients. It takes a total time of 45 minutes, 30 minutes of which is active and makes 6 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store. The turnips sold at my grocery store don't have the greens attached so I followed the suggestion in the recipe and used spinach. I found that when I tried to use my immersion blender on this soup the turnips were not soft enough. They needed to either by sliced much thinner or cooked longer than the time suggested. I let my turnips cook ten minutes more and then used my blender to puree the soup fully. This methods worked much better. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

I loved how creamy this soup turned out. The salad topping was the best part of the recipe. It allowed the soup to be less bitter and bring out the flavor of the turnips. Make sure to fully salt the soup at the end. It needed a good amount of salt to taste correct. If you want to make this soup vegetarian you could substitute the chicken stock for vegetable stock. I frequently substitute broths in recipes especially if I am cooking for vegetarian/vegan friends and family.

For the recipe go to Creamy Turnip Soup.

Autumn Root Vegetable Chili

I have made so many sweet potatoes dishes in the last month. This is my favorite time of the year and sweet potatoes are one of my favorite fall foods. I was fortunate enough to receive a substantial amount of yams and sweet potatoes from a friend's garden. I think in total I ended up with over 20 pounds of vegetables. Thanks to this bounty of fall harvest I was able to prepare a large amount of my Thanksgiving dishes without having to spend much of anything at the grocery store. Even before I was given all the free garden goodness I had already been making a ton of sweet potato recipes. One of my favorite ways to utilize sweet potatoes is to use them in chili. My whole family loves chili and sweet potatoes give it an additional flavor and is full of vitamins. Recently I tried a new recipe for Autumn Root Vegetable Chili from the November issue of Family Circle magazine which looked like the perfect fall vegetarian meal.

This recipe has 15 ingredients. It takes 33 minutes of cooking time, 25 minutes of prep and makes 4 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store. This recipe is a little bit prep intensive. Since the majority of ingredients are vegetables there is a lot of peeling and cutting. One way I save time on prep is to cut all the vegetables either in the morning or on the night before. That way I only have a half an hour of cooking at dinner time. The recipe suggests a cooking time of 25 minutes. However, I felt that the sweet potatoes weren't as soft as I wanted them after that amount of cooking time, so I cooked the chili an additional 10-15 minutes. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

I love the color on this dish. It would be a great meal to serve to guests since on the plate it looks very fall like. The flavor was mild enough that my two kids liked it, while well rounded enough that my husband and I enjoyed it. If you prefer spicier chili I would recommend increasing the chili powder to up to a teaspoon. I always adjust the amounts of spices to suit my family's needs.

For the recipe go to Autumn Root Vegetable Chili. (registration required)

Family Circle Root Vegetable Gratin

I have a slight obsession with root vegetables, I absolutely love them. The fall/winter season is one of my favorite times of the year since root vegetables are so easy to find and there are numerous new recipes to try. My two boys are just beginning to appreciate and eat parsnips and turnips, so I have been looking for more ways to incorporate them into my family's diet. Hence, the McDonald's plate in the photo. As I was looking through the November issue of Family Circle magazine I ran across a recipe for Root Vegetable Gratin, which looked delicious and a great way to use root vegetables.

This recipe has 16 ingredients. It takes two hours of prep and cooking time and makes six servings. The prep on this recipe took me slightly longer than the 25 minutes suggested, I find that it takes me a while to prep butternut squash. I was easily able to find all the ingredients at my local grocery store and didn't have to make any modifications to ingredients. I found that even after sitting for 10 minutes the gratin was still not completely thickened. After sitting overnight in the fridge the thickness was much better than when I first served the recipe. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

My two boys were big fans of this recipe. Root vegetables are always a hit in my household and this recipe was no exception. The recipe states that it makes 6 servings, but I found that it made more like 8-10 when served as a side dish. I would suggest allowing the gratin to sit longer than 10 minutes in order for it to fully set. Overall, a great fall dish.

For the recipe go to Root Vegetable Gratin.