The Process Of Chicken Soup

I don't have an exact recipe for chicken soup.  I have ingredients that I use, but the quantities are negotiable.  This dish is more about the process so bear with me.  The good news is that while this process is time consuming, you should get 4-6 meals out of it.

First of all, you're going to need a big 'ol stock pot.  You don't have to spend a ton of money on this - you can find perfectly good ones for under $50.  I know - $50 is not a small amount, but mine is 15 years old and still going strong.  You really, truly can not make decent stock without a pot this size because

1) You need a lot of ingredients.

2) You need a lot of water.

So get a big stock pot and put chicken parts in it.  For this batch I used one whole chicken, a chicken carcass that I had in the freezer from the last time I made roasted chicken and a couple of chicken breasts.  You want chicken that has bones in it because bones = flavor.  That's why the carcass is in there.  There's not much meat left, but there is still a lot of flavor.

Put the chicken parts in the pot and add water.  Leave about 2 inches of space between the top of the water and the top of the pot and turn the burner up high.

When the water starts boiling, turn the heat down so it's simmering.  You'll notice a rather nasty looking foam rising to the top. 

Scoop the foam off with a spoon.  My friend's Russian grandmother used to call this "skimming the scum" which is really fun to say so that's what I call it too.  I keep a bowl nearby and just dump it in there.  You'll have to do this several times, so keep checking back.

While the chicken is cooking, assemble your vegetables.  I used a head of celery, two large onions and about 8 cloves of garlic.  I should have thrown some parsley in there too.  You're not going to actually eat these vegetables, so just give them a rough chop.  I halved the onions and the peeled garlic cloves.

When the chicken is cooked through, fish it out of the pot and set it aside until it's cool enough to handle without burning your fingers.  You can go ahead and throw the vegetables in at this point and add more water until it's back up near the top.

For some reasons, the vegetables will make scum too. 

I don't know why.

Just skim it off and throw it out.

When the chicken has cooled, you're going to pick it apart with your fingers and put it into two piles:  edible and non-edible.

The non-edible pile is the bones, skin and little bits you're too lazy to pick off.  Don't throw this pile away!  It may not look appetizing, but what you see here is a pile of flavor.

Really.

Throw that pile of flavor back into the pot with the vegetables.  Set the lid of the pot at an angle so that some steam can escape, but the water doesn't evaporate too much and then just let it simmer.  It can go as long as you want it to.  I would say minimum two hours and as long as five, adding more water if it drops more than three inches from the top.  You're trying to cook all the flavor out of the contents and transfer it to the liquid so the long cooking time is necessary.

Back to the edible parts:  Take the chicken you pulled off the bones and just chop at it with a knife or shred it with your hands until you have bite-sized pieces.  We're going for a "rustic" look here so don't worry about uniform pieces

Now you have a decision to make:  Do you want to add veggies or just have chicken in your soup?  I put carrots in ours - just carrots.  But if you like chunky soup, you could add chopped onion, celery, turnips. . .whatever floats your boat.

Whatever you decide, cut up your vegetables and divvy them up.  I figured I had enough cooked chicken for three pots of soup, so I divided it among three freezer bags and added 3-4 sliced carrots to each bag.  Throw the bags into the refrigerator - you'll deal with them again tomorrow.

When you finally get tired of simmering your stock, remove the pot from the heat and take off the lid.  Using a big, slotted spoon fish out all the bones and cooked vegetables and throw them away. 

What you have now is a gigantic pot of extremely hot liquid.  You can't stick it in the fridge because it will make it too warm in there.  You could let it sit on your counter but you run into food safety issues after a couple of hours.

If you're making this soup on a really cold day, you can put the lid back on and stick it on the back porch for a couple of hours and then transfer it to the fridge - I've done that many times.  On this particular day though, it was 60+ degrees outside so I just threw in all the ice cubes from my freezer and stirred until they were melted which cooled the broth enough that I could stick it in the refrigerator.

The broth is going to need to chill overnight.  This is so that it gets cold enough to easily remove the fat.  In the morning, get the pot from the fridge. (Yes, I have a lot of eggs.)

See how all the fat has come to the top?  And it's nice and firm so all you have to do is grab a spoon and scoop it out and throw it away.

Pour what's left through a strainer (to remove and bone or veggie fragments that may be left) into a big bowl.  You now have world class, wildly delicious, super-flavorful chicken stock.

Ladle it into the bags of chicken and carrots that you made yesterday.  Tip:  Put the bag into a bowl to help it stay upright while you put in the liquid.  I figured this out the hard way one time after mopping chicken broth off my counter and floor.

I filled the bags until they were about half full.  This stock is very concentrated in flavor so when you make the soup you'll add more water.

Now you can seal the bags and lay them flat in your freezer.  You now have a pot of soup ready to go for the first snow fall of the year or for the first bad cold or just the next really busy night.

After I had put those three batches into the freezer, I had a lot of stock left over.  At this point you could pull out some quart-sized freezer bags and freeze the stock in two cup portions.  Most recipes call for chicken stock in 2 cup increments because that's how much is in the can you buy at the store.

This tastes sooooo much better though and, at this point, contains no sodium.  About the sodium:  you'll notice that I have not yet mentioned salt even though I think it's pretty essential.  That's because when you are making stock, you boil off so much liquid that if you added the salt at the beginning, you'd run the risk of overly salty soup.

So I could have frozen this stock in batches at this point, but my kids had spent the whole day before smelling chicken soup cooking and they wanted it NOW.   I also had an opportunity to bring dinner to a friend so I went ahead and cooked up four boneless, skinless chicken breasts and cut up the meat.  Then I sliced more carrots and divided the meat and veggies between two normal sized soup pots.

Besides salt, all you need to finish the soup are two things:  really good noodles and 3 drops of yellow food coloring.  (The food coloring is just to make the broth pretty.  It's not essential.)  These particular noodles take 25 minutes to cook which is about how long the carrots take so I filled the pot with broth until it was half full then added water until it reached abou 2/3 full and set it over high heat.

When it came to a boil, I added the noodles and simmered it, partially covered, until the noodles and carrots were soft - about 25 minutes.  Then I tasted it and added salt (about 2 teaspoons) until it tasted right to me.  (Rich will add more at the table of course.)

Finally, two days after I started, I had soup.  Wonderful soup.  Soup that tastes like love.

Celebration Flank Steak

3/4 cup oil

2 Tablespoons vinegar

1/4 cup soy sauce

2 Tablespoons chopped green onion

1 1/2 teaspoons ginger

1/4 cup honey

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

2 pounds flank steak (they usually run about a pound a piece, so you'll want two)

Mix together the oil, vinegar, soy sauce, green onion, ginger, honey and garlic.  Pour over flank steak in a zip top bag.  Ideally, let this marinate overnight in the refrigerator.

Preheat grill.  When hot, place the steaks over medium flame and grill for seven minutes on each side.

It will end up being medium rare to medium in the middle.  You really don't want it any more done than that or the meat gets tough.  Remove from heat and let stand 10 minutes.  When you cut into meat straight off of the gril, all the juices run out and the meat can get dry.  Letting it stand makes for juicier steak!

After standing, slice meat against the grain.

If you have people who like their meat more well done, make sure they get slices from the ends.

Banana Berry Trifle

Before you start, a couple of things to note:

1) Remember that pound cake freezes well.  You can have a few loaves in your freezer ready to go so you can throw this together.  Or, y'know, just use Sara Lee.  But don't tell me about it.

2) Yes, you can use instant pudding and if you're making this for most people, they won't know the difference but the homemade is worth the effort.

3) Actual whipped cream tastes better than Cool Whip but it doesn't hold up well if this dish is going to sit out for any length of time.  For that reason, I usually use the Cool Whip.  I am a heathen.

4) Use any combo of soft fruit that you wish.  This is what I make most often, but throw in your favorites.  Avoid citrus fruit though -the acid does weird things to the pudding.

Ingredients

1/2 recipe Sour Cream Pound Cake baked in a loaf pan for about 45 minutes.  Cool and cut into cubes.

1 pint strawberries

1 pint blueberries

2 bananas

1 tub Cool Whip

Pudding

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/4 tsp salt

4 cups whole milk

4 egg yolks, lightly beaten

2 Tbsp unsalted butter

2 tsp vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, cornstarch and salt.  Gradually stir in milk.  Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly (around 15 minutes).  Reduce heat; cook and stir 2 minutes longer.  Remove from heat.

Slowly stir a small amount of hot filling into egg yolk; return all to the pan, stirring constantly.  Bring to a gentle boil; cook and stir 1 minute longer.  Remove from heat.  Gently stir in butter and vanilla.

Let cool for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

While pudding is cooling, wash and dice strawberries and slice bananas.

In a large glass bowl or trifle dish, layer about half of the pound cake cubes.  Arrange some fruit in a pretty way between cake and sides of dish.  Pour on enough warm pudding to cover.

Over pudding layer, sprinkle blueberries, sliced bananas and dices strawberries until well covered.  Spread a layer of whipped cream or cool whip over fruit.  Repeat layers.  Decorate top layer with remaining berries.

Cherry Chocolate Christmas Cookies

Before you start know this:  These cookies are not cheap to make.  Candied cherries are $5.37 for 8 ounces at my grocery store.  Add in the Hershey's candy and other ingredients and this recipe can get spendy.  BUT they are pretty and delicious and my childrens' absolute favorite.  I only make them once a year so it's okay.

Just thought I'd give you a heads up though so you're not standing in the baking aisle cursing me.

1 bag Hershey's Hugs candy

1 box white cake mix

1/3 cup vegetable/canola oil

1/2 tsp almond extract

2 eggs

1 cup candied cherries, well chopped

Preheat oven to 375.

Combine cake mix, oil, almond extract, eggs and cherries.  Mix until well combined.

Shape into one inch balls and place 2 inches apart on baking sheet.

Bake for 6-8 minutes.

While they are baking, unwrap Hugs.

Pull cookies out of the oven and immediately place a candy in the center of each cookie.  Let rest two minutes and then carefully transfer to a cooking rack.

If it's cold outside, place the racks outside.  This will set up the candies quickly - in under 30 minutes.  Otherwise, you'll have to leave them on the counter for several hours before the Hugs re-harden.

Make sure the candy hardens before packaging. 

Peanut Butter Pie

1 cup creamy peanut butter

8 oz softened cream cheese

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups Cool-Whip

9 inch chocolate crumb crust

Hot Fudge sauce

Cream togther the peanut butter, cream cheese and sugar and vanilla.  Fold in Cool-Whip.  Spoon into pie shell.  Cover and refrigerate several hours until well set.

Heat fudge sauce in microwave just until spreadable.  Top pie with sauce - usuall 1/2-2/3 jar.  Chill again for 30 minutes.