Chicken Soup for...Well, for Me.

I've been a whole new level of sick lately. Its been over two weeks now, and I'm waiting on a referral to the ENT for some stuff. Anyway, I decided this was a good excuse to make some chicken noodle soup. Now, admittedly, I normally would make homemade noodles and chop  celery and carrots and onion and go through the whole ordeal, but: I'm barely putting out enough energy to crochet for more than twenty minutes at a time SO I took a few shortcuts.
To start: I like to make my meat-centered soups in the slow-cooker. Slow cookers are much better at breaking down the meat while keeping in the juices and not letting it dry out. It also lets me throw in my ingredients and walk away when I'm busy or sick.

I set the slow-cooker to the "Low" setting, and let it start to warm up. Meanwhile, I take half of a large sweet onion (Vidalia are my favorite) and I mince it. I toss it into a pan with a couple of pats of butter and start to saute them. In with the onions while they saute, I toss in my seasonings. Sage, thyme, rosemary, salt, pepper, 4 crushed chicken bouillon cubes, a pinch of garlic powder and a little celery seed. (NOT celery salt.) Once my onions are translucent and my spices are fragrant, I toss the mix into my slow cooker. I also add in one can of cream of chicken soup and the remainder of the stick of butter.

I don't personally like to use too much white meat in soups and dumplings. White meat can be dry or tough, even in the slow cooker, not to mention the fats/skins/bones of the dark meat add more flavor to the soup, SO I mix white and dark.  This time, I had a package of chicken thighs and a very large chicken breast. Four thighs, and one breast the size of two is plenty of chicken for the soup. And as a sidenote: Chicken thighs are super easy to bone and skin, so never pay the extra cost for boneless skinless unless they are just really on sale.


 Now all I do is let that mix slow cook for about 2-3 hours. The chicken will be cooked by then and you can remove it with tongs. Let it cook for a few minutes on a plate, then debone it and shred or cut it up. It should fall off the bone and break up easily. I like to leave the tiny pieces of skin in, but if you don't want them, toss the skin with the bones. Mix the chicken and all the juices off the plate back into the mixture in your slow-cooker. I then cheated and added in a can of carrots and a bag of flat, wide, egg noodles and mixed it up. I was a little woozy at this point, so no picture, but instead, here is a picture of my adorably concerned dog taking care of me while I am sick!

 Let the noodles soak up the broth for 30 minutes (I let mine go an hour because I like squishy noodles) and then enjoy. :) It hit the spot and took little to no effort and minimal clean up.

Ni Hao

My grandma in Virginia has a beautiful home with a huge yard, and a section of that yard is sectioned off into a really nice and well-maintained garden. Each time any of us goes to visit, we are filled to the brim with any food she can give us, much of it made with fruits and veggies from her garden, and then when we leave we are most likely carrying armloads of homegrown and homemade goodies. Among the bounty my parents returned with this last visit, was an entire sack full of plums from my grandma's plum tree, most of which were ranging in size from ping-pong balls to golf balls.
As their are just the three of us in our house, (Mom, Dad and myself) I needed to find a way to use the plums. At first we considered just breaking them down into plum sauce sort of like an apple sauce, but then I decided I love apricots and peaches with meat, why not make a little home-made Asian Ginger Plum barbecue sauce.
I boiled the plums down, removed pits and peels, then cooked the plum-mash with some spices and seasonings until it smelled and tasted delicious. I kept that in an air-tight container for a few days while I my birthday weekend passed by.

Last night, I worked on a marinate for the pork chops we had decided I'd use the sauce on. I find pork to be a very taste-less and dry meat, especially if you do not use a marinate, and so I'm personally not much a fan, but Mom and Dad enjoy it, so I use it. Now, I'll be honest. If you can't tell, I'm just not the measurements type! I grab and go. The marinate I tossed my pork loin chops into includes: orange juice, soy sauce, canola oil, worchestershire sauce, pomegranate juice, minced dried onion, ginger, chinese five spice, thyme, sage, and 1/4 cup of near-boiling water with a chai-spice tea bag that was allowed to settle in it until it cooled. I mixed all of this together and poured it over my chops. I let it marinate 24 hours and everything smells mildly spiced and yummy.
I grill them for 5-6 minutes on the first side, then 3-5 on the second side. They are definitely done, as these aren't thick chops. The last minute on each side, I cook on a little of the Asian Ginger Plum sauce that I made for them, then pull them off, put a little more on and let them rest covered in foil.


To go with these Asian-style pork chops, I went with a homemade fried rice. In my pot I put: rice, margarine, chicken bouillon, beef bouillon, dried & minced onion in a pot. Stir it around a little, then throw it on medium-high heat. I bring the mix to a boil with lid on, stir, then replace the lid, set to lowest heat setting and walk away for about 18-20 minutes. DO NOT remove the lid! The steam and heat in the pot cooks the rice slow and evenly.
When its done, you have a yummy fluffy but not sticky rice with some flavor already cooked into it thanks to the bouillon and you didn't waste money cooking it in a chicken or beef stock. Same principle, same flavor, less expensive! I do the same when I make Panamanian rice, but I also toss in saffron and achiote then.


In the rice, when I fry it, I'll use around 2Tbsp of canola oil. I stir fry an onion until its just translucent, sprinkle in a little garlic powder with it then toss in my thawed frozen peas and carrots. stir fry them long enough to be warmed through, but never too long. I like them to keep their bite to them.
Once the veggies are to my liking, I pull them off the heat and into a large bowl. I pre-whipped 2 eggs and then I scramble them in the pan that I've returned to the heat (add a drop or two more of oil if necessary) and a drop or two of soy sauce. I make sure the eggs break up into tiny crumbles and toss them in the bowl with the veggies, then add oil to the pan again if necessary. This time, a little bit of sesame oil goes in the mix as well. I throw in a few dashes of Chinese five spice, a sprinkle or two of ground ginger, and then some more soy sauce and let that heat in the oil a few seconds, then BOOM, add the rice and mix to coat. I let the rice sit spread out for a few minutes so it will crisp up just a little, flip it around and do that again, then when the rice is ready, pop it into the bowl with the veggies and eggs, mix to combine and its ready.
I also made eggrolls to go with dinner, but admittedly I cheated with these. I'm fully capable of making homemade eggrolls, but the fact is that for two dollars per package, I can't beat the fresh pre-packed ones from the grocery store. Bake them up in the oven at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes (flipping them once) and they're done.

All in all, everything turned out really good. :)

Apéritif.

As an introduction, I felt I should just jump in here and say what this blog is about. I am a food lover. A "foodie," if you will. I believe I always have been. The opportunity to watch or help anyone cook was always exciting for me, even from an early age, and at around 3 or 4 years old, I attempted (and actually was doing fairly well) at making my first fried egg. (Everyone freaking out and the lecture I got, along with a serious timeout, after wasn't so great, but I got the pan, turned the stove on, put the butter in it and even cracked the egg!)
As I got older and was given the basics, I started getting really good at cooking, and thanks to cooking shows entrancing me, and then the invention of the Food Network, I learned a lot on my own. The internet became my best friend for exploring plausibility of ideas I had, and then I took a year of a cooking basics class in high school that really gave me a leg up. I longed for the adventure of a culinary arts education, but as a realist, the expensive school didn't seem plausible for the pay most people would make from it as a career.
Now, my life is spent with each day of my personal life going on as it should, but food always being a focal point for me.
I run my own small hobby-business doing baking and candy-making, and I use any excuse to cook that I can.
This blog, therefore, will be my own cooking-adventures diary. :) Welcome, enjoy, and bon appétit!