who wants soup?
i've had the worst craving for chicken soup for a few days (i think it's dear-tiger's fault but i'm not sure) (apparently if things aren't wrenlet's fault they're tiger's), so today i finally got off my butt and went to the store for chicken pieces and carrots and celery and made some. it's still cooking on the stove but i can smell it at the other end of the apartment. sort of. it's my grandma's chicken soup and my mom makes it for holidays, and when my sister and i went to florida in january and my sister was sick, mom made it for her. the first time i made it, it was good but not quite as good as mom's, so i'm trying again.
it's super easy.
4-5 lbs chicken, either a cut-up whole chicken or assorted thighs, legs, and breasts
3-4 carrots, scraped and washed [1], or many baby carrots
3-4 celery stalks, some with leaves, plus 2-3 little stalks from the center of the bunch, also with leaves
large yellow onion
12 whole cloves
12-15 peppercorns
bay leaf
salt to taste (1/2 tsp or so)
wash chicken pieces, trim some of the fat (but not all of it), skin breasts
cut carrots into big pieces
ditto for celery
peel onion and stick cloves in it
everything goes in a pot! [2]
add peppercorns
and bay leaf
and salt
cover chicken and veg with cold water
bring the water to a boil, then reduce to simmer and cover
cook for 3-4 hours
when cool, strain chicken and veg (and bay leaf) from stock [3]
put stock in the fridge to chill until the fat floats to the top and hardens like a skin
skim off the fat
you have soup! eat it now or freeze it for later
[1] the recipe says "scraped" which i interpreted as "scrubbed clean but not peeled", but if you want to peel your carrots, go for it.
[2] at least twelve quarts. you know, in case you're like me and your big pot is only six quarts, which you realize the first time you make soup and discover that the chicken and veg fit in the pot, but there's no room to add the water. >.< and then you have to run out and buy an actual stock pot.
[3] you can pitch the veg and bay leaf. the recipe says to pitch the chicken as well, but if you're still like me, you'll be constitutionally incapable of throwing out almost five pounds of cooked chicken. it doesn't taste like much, but if you add pepper and mayo and celery, you have a nice basic chicken salad. :D and you still have a lot of shredded chicken to cook with. put it back in the soup when you heat it up.
clearly not for vegetarians. hopefully we'll have it for passover, even tho my sister and i are going to florida where it will probably not be soup weather.
i love that it calls for exactly twelve cloves, but "many" baby carrots.
the other thing i did was pick up my comics, including an anthology of science shorts and a zine about happy sex as a multiple. (lb-lee, a local artist/writer, had a signing at the comic shop, and apparently i'm incapable of not buying stuff from local folks, especially when the local folks are there to talk to. plus which, science! and happy sex. :D the art is super cute.)
curling with cars, by which i mean russians sliding old soviet cars across the ice. weird and fun.
meet the kattarshians, by which i mean it's a live feed of icelandic kitties. so cute and fuzzy.
it's super easy.
4-5 lbs chicken, either a cut-up whole chicken or assorted thighs, legs, and breasts
3-4 carrots, scraped and washed [1], or many baby carrots
3-4 celery stalks, some with leaves, plus 2-3 little stalks from the center of the bunch, also with leaves
large yellow onion
12 whole cloves
12-15 peppercorns
bay leaf
salt to taste (1/2 tsp or so)
wash chicken pieces, trim some of the fat (but not all of it), skin breasts
cut carrots into big pieces
ditto for celery
peel onion and stick cloves in it
everything goes in a pot! [2]
add peppercorns
and bay leaf
and salt
cover chicken and veg with cold water
bring the water to a boil, then reduce to simmer and cover
cook for 3-4 hours
when cool, strain chicken and veg (and bay leaf) from stock [3]
put stock in the fridge to chill until the fat floats to the top and hardens like a skin
skim off the fat
you have soup! eat it now or freeze it for later
[1] the recipe says "scraped" which i interpreted as "scrubbed clean but not peeled", but if you want to peel your carrots, go for it.
[2] at least twelve quarts. you know, in case you're like me and your big pot is only six quarts, which you realize the first time you make soup and discover that the chicken and veg fit in the pot, but there's no room to add the water. >.< and then you have to run out and buy an actual stock pot.
[3] you can pitch the veg and bay leaf. the recipe says to pitch the chicken as well, but if you're still like me, you'll be constitutionally incapable of throwing out almost five pounds of cooked chicken. it doesn't taste like much, but if you add pepper and mayo and celery, you have a nice basic chicken salad. :D and you still have a lot of shredded chicken to cook with. put it back in the soup when you heat it up.
clearly not for vegetarians. hopefully we'll have it for passover, even tho my sister and i are going to florida where it will probably not be soup weather.
i love that it calls for exactly twelve cloves, but "many" baby carrots.
the other thing i did was pick up my comics, including an anthology of science shorts and a zine about happy sex as a multiple. (lb-lee, a local artist/writer, had a signing at the comic shop, and apparently i'm incapable of not buying stuff from local folks, especially when the local folks are there to talk to. plus which, science! and happy sex. :D the art is super cute.)
curling with cars, by which i mean russians sliding old soviet cars across the ice. weird and fun.
meet the kattarshians, by which i mean it's a live feed of icelandic kitties. so cute and fuzzy.