Chicken Soup

Happy Nom Nom Monday. Since Hurricane Sandy is in full swing for us I made us some Chicken Soup.  It's an adaptation of Aaron's mom's Turkey Soup.  It's the same recipe but with a chicken instead of a turkey.  

Ingredients:

- 1 large onion

- 1 whole cooked chicken (bones & all)

- water

- 4 cups potatoes

- 1 cup celery

- 1 cup carrots

- 1 cup mushrooms

- salt and pepper

Directions:

Begin by dicing up the onion and placing that in a large pot with the whole chicken.  Cover with water and let boil.  Cook for 30 - 40 minutes if fresh, or an hour if frozen.  Next remove the chicken from the stock.  

Drain the stock, and check the onion and remaining chunks for bones.  Return the onion to the large sauce pan.  Hold the stock off to the side for a bit.  

Let the chicken cool a bit, and then clean all the meat off of the bones.  Return the meat to the large pan, and discard the bones and skin.  Add the stock to the pot, and bring back to a simmer.  

Cut the potatoes, carrots, celery, and mushrooms up.  I actually did this ahead of time, which worked out great.  Whatever works for you though.  Add the potatoes to the simmering chicken stock, they will take about 50 minutes to cook.  Twenty minutes later add the carrots and celery.  They take about thirty minutes to cook.  When there is only 10 - 5 minutes remaining add the mushrooms.  

Everything should be perfectly cooked and ready to serve 50 minutes from adding the potatoes to the simmering chicken stock.  Once served I seasoned with salt and pepper.  This is the perfect meal for being trapped indoors from a hurricane. 

Hope everyone in the surrounding areas are staying dry and safe!  Happy Nom Nom Monday, and DIYing, chris! 

Arctic Ants On A Log

Today's Nom Nom Monday recipe is another simple snack, Arctic Ants On A Log.  Now I know celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins are tasty, but I often crave a more salty snack than a sweet snack, and that's how I came up with this idea.  Celery sticks with cream cheese, and kalamata olives and/or peanuts.  For these five sticks I used one and a half celery stalks, and about a tablespoon of cream cheese, three olives, and three peanuts.  Which was the perfect amount to hold me off until dinner, but I didn't eat too much of the unhealthy stuff to make it a terrible thing to munch on.

I love to snack, and I'm of the belief that snacking isn't a bad thing.  Sure we have a tendency to munch on a truck ton of unhealthy snacks, instead of a sensible portion of healthy food.  However if we think of what we have in the house, and what we could whip together before we get hungry, it can be a helpful trick to curb your appetite between larger meals.  That way when it does come to dinner time we aren't eating three times our portion size, and making poor choices when planning a healthy meal, because we're starving.   Real Simple had a great article A Guide to Healthy Snacking in August's edition.  There are definitely some great tips in there, and I highly recommend giving it a peek.

Thanks for visiting, and hope you had a lovely Monday, and happy DIYing, chris  

Soup To Soothe The Soul

We are keeping on with things.  It's hard in the morning not having the usual Moose things to do, and I miss him sitting on the couch.  He'd sit next to me, and every so often he'd push his little body up against my leg, and it was dang cute.  

Anyway we still need to eat, and I always like to eat soup to soothe my broken heart.  We had a bunch of mushrooms in the fridge that needed to be used, and we happened to have almost all the ingredients for this soup.  When I want to make a soup, the first place I look is The Soup Bible.  I love this cookbook, 250 pages of awesome soup recipes.  Any soup ingredient you want to use, there is probably a soup for it in this book.  Today I'm sharing a recipe called Mushroom, Celery, and Garlic Soup.

Ingredients:

- 4 1/2 chopped mushrooms

- 4 celery stalks

- 3 garlic cloves

- 3 tablespoons of white merlot (the book calls for dry sherry or white wine)

- 3 cups chicken stock

- 2 table spoons Worcestershire sauce

- 1 teaspoon nutmeg (the book says freshly grated, I wanted a milder flavor)

Directions:

Clean and chop the mushrooms, and celery stalks, and garlic cloves.  Then place them in a large saucepan, with the white merlot, or whatever alcohol you use.  Let cook, covered for 30 - 40 minutes, or until tender, stir occasionally.  Once cooked pour into a food processor with 1 1/2 cups of chicken stock, and blend until smooth.  Pour back into the large saucepan, add the other 1 1/2 cups of chicken stock, worcestershire sauce, and nutmeg.  Bring to a boil, and add salt and fresh ground black pepper to season.  

Serve warm.  It had a tiny bit of a kick to it.  The soup was fresh and earthy tasting.  A great vegetarian option.  

Hope you enjoyed, and happy Nom Nom Monday, chris.