Easy as Soup

With a couple of sick Foodies in the house,

soup seemed to be the order of the day.

I opted to make a turkey noodle soup for myself.

My ingredients are

one turkey cutlet
one carrot, sliced
one celery rib, sliced
1/4 cup onion, diced
one garlic clove, grated or minced
1/2 cup frozen corn
2 cups turkey stock
one package Ramen noodles
1/2 teaspoon dried Herbes de Provence
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
kosher salt, to taste

If I had had green beans on hand,

I would have added 1/2 cup of those as well.

For those of you who can eat chicken,

please substitute a chicken breast and chicken broth

for the turkey and turkey stock.

As it happened, I was making both soups this day.

The trick was to avoid cross-contamination.

Now back to the turkey

(and please note that the same techniques are used for chicken).

The turkey cutlet was cut into 3/8-inch cubes

and salted and peppered.

The turkey was sauteed in a bit of olive oil,

before being added to the turkey stock, grated garlic

and Herbes de Provence in a pot.

Then the veggies were lightly sauteed.

These were also added to the pot.

Four cups of water were also added

and the soup was brought to a boil

before the broken Ramen noodles were stirred in.

This?

This was thrown away.

Anything that has salt as its first ingredient and

ingredients that I can't pronounce isn't going in my food.

Soup's on.

This was mine.

The homemade chicken noodle soup

was for the Foodie Daughter and Boyfriend.

See how easy it is to make soup at home?

And what of the husband?

This is what he wanted.

And he was happy.

Go figure.

Snow Days and Chicken Noodle Soup

I know that some of my southern readers yearn

for the fluffy goodness that is snow.

Luckily for you,

I looked outside the other evening

to find that snow was falling from the sky and landing on the ground.

Huh, imagine that.

At least it makes it look a bit brighter outside at night.

Falling snow!


We ended up with about 3/4" of the white stuff on the ground.
Strangely enough,
this seemed to be enough reason for several area schools to close for the day.

Why, in my day we had to walk to school in a blizzard against a headwind.
Up hill.
Both ways!
Every day.

Er, yeah.

Early morning shadows.

The garden in winter.

*

Now, I'm sure that many of you may have noticed that here in the Foodie household we have the Foodie Blogger (me), the Foodie Daughter, the Foodie Boyfriend, and the husband.

I have commented before that the dear husband has yet to earn his Foodie designation.

*

And with food choices like these,

it seems as if it will be a long time before the husband does indeed earn his stripes.

The Foodie Daughter is sick,

so I pulled a container of homemade Chicken Noodle Soup out of the freezer for dinner*.
~*~

The dear husband eschewed that selection

and instead opted to have chicken noodle soup from a can.

He claims he doesn't like to have veggies in his chicken noodle soup.

Apparently he also doesn't like to have chicken in his chicken noodle soup either,

considering how stingy the soup company is with the chicken.

~*~

Now tell me, which one would you rather have:

the canned chicken noodle soup on the left

or the homemade chicken noodle soup on the right?

Sigh,

what's a Foodie to do?

*And in case you are wondering,

I found a container of homemade beef vegetable soup in the freezer for myself.

Pesky chicken allergy.

The Healing Arts

I don't know of a better way to speed recovery from a nasty cold than to get into the kitchen and start cooking. It's therapy, I tell ya.

Hah! I knew I had some turkey carcasses lurking in the deep recesses of the freezer. Celery, along with the leaves, carrot, onion, garlic, black peppercorns, salt, fresh thyme sprigs (yes, I actually do have some growing outside now), fresh rosemary, sage and bay leaves do their part to add flavor to the pot. You might notice that I left the skins on the onion.

This simmered for eight hours before being strained and allowed to cool. I have plans for this stock. Cue the evil laugh...

Come Monday morning I felt well enough to go to my regular grocery store for things that I will then be able to find in my very own refrigerator and pantry.

Then, when I got home, I set to work making the first of two soups. Here are the ingredients for the first soup: low-sodium chicken stock, black pepper, kosher salt, cooked chicken, onion, garlic, dried Herbes de Provence, green beans, carrot, celery, frozen corn and noodles.

The onion, celery and carrot were cut and sauteed in a bit of olive oil.


The remaining veggies were added along with grated garlic and the Herbes de Provence.



The chicken stock was added to the pot. Deciding that more liquid would be needed for the noodles, I added a couple of cups of water.

Noodles were dropped into the boiling liquid and the heat was reduced. At this point the cooked chicken was also put into the pot. This soup simmered for 20 minutes to allow the noodles to fully cook.

The daughter came in and tested the soup for seasoning since I couldn't. She added salt until she was happy with the flavor.

The dear daughter was quite appreciative of the effort her mother put forth for her.

But, I'm not finished yet...

I decided to try a recipe from Food Network's Ultimate Recipe Showdown. Chunky Tomato Bacon Soup was an entry in the Comfort Foods challenge from this season.

Of course, I had to substitute turkey stock for the chicken stock, but the other ingredients remain the same.

From the left rear we have homemade turkey stock, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, dried basil, olive oil, heavy cream, salt, fresh thyme, shallot, garlic, bacon and sugar.

I did deviate slightly from the recipe by first frying up the bacon, removing the bacon and reserving a tablespoon of the bacon fat for sauteing the shallot.

The basil, thyme, tomato paste and grated garlic were then added to the pan. The bacon was also added back at this point.

Then the turkey stock, crushed tomatoes and heavy cream were poured into the pot. Salt and sugar were added to taste.

I allowed this to simmer over low heat for several minutes.

And can I just tell you? This was so easy to do. Seriously, cooking the bacon was the most difficult part of the whole process.

Freshly grated sharp cheddar cheese and thinly sliced green onions top my soup.

Thick and rich and delicious really does describe this dish. My husband even helped himself to a second serving of this simple soup.

I will be making this soup again, although I might save the bacon bits for topping the soup the next time.

A nice loaf of Pane Bello from a local bakehouse rounded out the meal.

But wait... I still not finished...

I also whipped up a batch of strawberry sorbet this afternoon, using frozen strawberries, orange juice, freshly squeezed lemon juice and simple syrup.

Can you think of a better way to beat the common cold?

Now, where do I go to apply for my patent?