Murphy's Law: Christmas Edition

It's been a long week in our household. I had to cancel Christmas due to a lovely cough and fever, which I'm just now getting over, and my husband has just started developing.

Since I'm finally starting to feel well enough to cook, it's time for soup! The first time I ever saw Rachel Ray on TV, she was making her version of this soup. I didn't write down the directions, so I'm not sure how accurate this replication is, but the husband approves.

As with all my soup recipes, the ingredients and measurements are more like guidelines. Use your own judgement, and tweak it 'til you find your perfect blend!

Pasta Fagioli
bacon (or pancetta, if you're fancy)
sweet onion
2-4 ribs celery
2-4 carrots
chicken broth, chicken stock, or chicken bouillon
~1 C noodles or short pasta
4-8 oz mushrooms, fresh or canned
1 can white beans (butter beans, navy beans, etc)

Start by placing 3-6 slices of bacon on a cutting board and using a large, sharp knife to cut across the slices, making ~1/8" wide bacon rectangles. Turn the cutting board and slice the bacon the other way, so that you have a pile of bacon cubes. (If you're smart, it'll occur to you before you start cutting that this may be easier if you put the bacon slices in the freezer for 5-10 minutes to firm them up a little.)

Dump the bacon pieces into your soup pot, over medium-low heat. Chop your onion while the bacon gets started cooking. I had a huge onion and a small soup pot, so I only chopped half my onion, but if you're making a larger batch, go for the whole thing. Dump the onion in with the bacon and give everything a stir. We want to sauté everything, so the bacon gets crispy and the onions just start to brown but not burn, so give the pan contents a stir every time you add something or walk past the stove while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. Turn the heat down a little if seems like things are cooking too fast.

Rinse the other veggies well, peeling them if you feel it necessary, and adding each to the pot as you finish preparing them. I just scrub the carrots and trim off the ends. If your celery is nice and fresh, you can chop the whole rib, adding leaves and everything to the soup. If your celery is turning yellow and the ends are less than fresh, trim that off and chop up the firm parts. If you have any other firm veggies that you'd like to add to the soup, do that now. I slice the carrots last, then add the chicken broth.  I used 5 C today because it was a really small pot, but more is probably better because the pan's getting a bit crowded now. This would also be a good place to add a dash of your favorite Italian spices. Maybe 1/2 tsp thyme and basil? (I forgot. Husband didn't care that much because, bacon.)

Bring the soup to a boil, turn down to medium, and let simmer for 5 minutes or so. Then add a couple handfuls of pasta and let continue simmering for at least as long as the directions say to let the pasta cook. (This varies by shape. My egg noodles were 7 minutes, but the bow tie pasta I almost used was 14. Rice would probably take 20-30 minutes.) If you're using fresh mushrooms, you want to add them to the soup about 10 minutes before cook time is finished. This gives them enough time to soften, but not get mushy.

Meanwhile, pour the beans into a strainer and rinse all the can goop off of them. When the pasta is done, stir in the beans and turn off the heat. Let the soup sit for a few minutes before serving. Garnish with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese, if you wish.

Options:  If you like, you can add a can of diced tomatoes and their juices at the same time as the chicken broth. I prefer mine without. If you use canned mushrooms, drain them and add at the same time as the beans. Of course, if you're vegetarian or don't have bacon handy, you can skip the bacon and use olive oil to sauté the veggies. Vegetarians will use vegetable stock in place of chicken broth, naturally.

Easy Chinese

Back when I was in high school, after I got my first car, my friends and I would pile into it and drive over to our favorite Chinese place to get lunch together every time we had a half day. That restaurant is no longer there, but it's still the best egg drop soup I've ever had.  I set out to recreate that soup today, and I'm pretty happy with what I came up with!

Egg Drop Soup

6 C chicken broth (or 6 cups water with 5 cubes chicken bouillon 

                                      or 1 1/2 Tbsp chicken bouillon powder)

1 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp black pepper

1 small can mushrooms, drained

1 cup frozen green peas

1/2 C carrots (cubed or matchstick)

2 eggs

(optional: cornstarch)

In a medium saucepan, combine the broth and spices and heat to boiling. Then add the peas and carrots and return to a boil. 

If you'd like the broth a bit thicker, like what you'd get at a restaurant, put 1 Tbsp cornstarch in a small bowl, and add a SMALL amount of the broth, stirring thoroughly so there will be no lumps. Continue adding small amounts of broth, stirring after each addition, until the mix is about the consistency of milk. Add this mix into the broth and continue boiling for a few minutes. (I only tried this with 2 tsp cornstarch, which wasn't enough to really thicken the soup much. You may find that you need more than 1 Tbsp.) *Never add cornstarch directly to the broth. It will clump and not dissolve, no matter how long you stir it.* Turn the heat down just until the soup stops bubbling.

In a small bowl, crack the eggs (being careful not to get any shell mixed in) and gently whisk the egg with a fork until the white and yolk are mixed. Traditionally, egg drop soup is made with the whites only, but I don't notice much difference, and then I don't have to separate the egg. (Yay, lazy cooking!)

Now comes the magic: stir the soup until the broth has a nice swirl going (you can continue to stir during this process if you don't need to, for instance, hold a camera at the same time) and slowly pour the egg into the broth. It doesn't have to be a drizzle, but if you dump it in all at once, you'll end up with a poached egg instead of the expected threads of egg. It doesn't show in the GIF, but if you do this in plain chicken broth, you can actually watch the egg "blossom" as it cooks.

You can stir in the mushrooms either before or after you add the egg, because they're already cooked and just need a minute to heat up. This recipe makes 2-3 bowls of soup, and made a nice lunch accompanied by egg rolls from the freezer section at our local grocery store.

My husband likes to throw in chopped pieces of chicken and cooked Ramen noodles. He's weird like that.  :)

Who're you calling chicken?

First Time Around
Last week, I saw a "rotisserie" chicken recipe on Pinterest. The trick is that it's made in a slow cooker!
What I really like about it is that I can pull the skin off the chicken before adding the spices. When I get a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store, I always lose the wonderful seasonings that get rubbed on the skin before the chicken is cooked.

A few things that I learned while making this chicken:

• Place the chicken breast side down (the opposite of what you see in the picture)
• If you don't love spicy food, reduce the cayenne pepper to 1/2 tsp
• If you have a regular slow cooker (like you see above, not a Crock Pot), you need to add a bit of liquid to keep the pan from getting damaged. 1/2 Cup water was plenty.

When the chicken was done, I stuck two forks in it, and it practically fell apart. I pulled most of the white meat and the large pieces of dark meat out of the pan, then served a few pieces with potato chunks and some steamed vegetables. After the carcass and broth had cooled, I dumped it all into a container so I could make soup later!

Reruns

One of my favorite things about cold weather is that it's incredibly easy to make soup out of pretty much anything I have in the fridge and pantry. 

I started by dumping the carcass and broth into a big soup pot. Add water to the pot. I used about twice as much water as chicken. (It's not an exact science, you can add more water if you like, just make sure the carcass is completely covered. If you add too much water, you can always use a little chicken bouillon to boost the chicken flavor before serving.) Bring it to a boil, then turn down to medium and simmer for an hour or so. 

Ways to improve the broth:

• Add a couple Tbsps of white vinegar to the water before you start to cook it. The vinegar taste and smell will disappear, but it draws the calcium and minerals out of the bones. If you simmer the broth long enough (about 5 hours), the bones will be flexible when you pull them out. If you decide to do that, leave the lid slightly askew, turn the heat to low, and check the pot occasionally to make sure there is still enough liquid in the pot.
• You can save scraps of veggies that you won't eat--like potato peels, broccoli stems, or wilted lettuce--wash them, and add them to the broth. You'll get the extra flavor from them, but they'll be removed before you finish making the soup.

When you're happy with the broth, you'll need to separate the broth by filtering out all the good stuff. I used a fine mesh sieve placed over a large glass measuring cup. Don't throw the solids out yet!

Put the broth back in the pan, turn up the heat, and start adding things for the soup. My favorite things to throw in:

• leftover vegetables from previous meals
• chopped veggies, anything that's in the fridge. This usually includes carrots, celery, or bell peppers. I also like to chop up a whole onion to add to the soup. Usually I'll sauté the onion in 1 Tbsp olive oil before adding the broth.
• short pasta (my favorites are bow tie, rotini, or elbow macaroni.) or chunks of potato
• canned beans, cooked and crumbled bacon, or leftover cooked meat

While your soup is cooking, spread your solids out on a cutting board and pick through it, looking for bits of chicken meat. Make sure you pull out all the bones when you're sorting the chicken meat! Once it's sorted, chop up those chicken bits and throw them back in the pot. When the veggies and pasta are tender, dinner is served!

Coming Soon

Well, if you're the kind of person who prefers a solid recipe, check back later this week. I'll be posting the recipe for the Shepherd's Pie I made with the remaining chicken.