Halloween Horror Soup

I very, very much dislike Halloween. Maybe it's because I'm not creative and can't ever think of a good costume, maybe it's because I have nightmares from seeming innocuous movies like the first Nightmare on Elm Street or maybe it's because I'm mildly afraid of teenagers and they always seem to start trouble on Halloween. Who knows. The one thing I do love about Halloween is the candy. My oh my do I love candy. I especially love "holidays" that are focused on candy because the day after said "holiday" all the candy goes on sale, and one of the few inanimate things I love more than candy is a good sale. So I pretty much only like the day after Halloween, except that fact that it's All Saints Day and if I were the good Catholic my grandparents wanted me to be I'd be busy at Mass not busy buying all the candy. Anywho, I digress. Onto the soup. Why is this a horror, you may wonder. Well, two of the ingredients may invoke fear in some people, specifically the mushrooms and parsnips as I get the feeling society thinks those veggies are grossies, when in fact they are not.

For this Halloween Horror or Chicken and parsnip soup, you'll need: 1 chicken breast, 3 fresh sage leaves, 1 small sprig of rosemary, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 shallot, 3 parsnips, 8 oz of cremini mushrooms, a small bit of parsley, 1 can of chickpeas, some broth and hot sauce of your choosing.  Also, in the pursuit of full disclosure, this recipe is in the November 2010 issue of Cooking Light.

First, get the chicken boiling in some water.  I seasoned the water with some salt, pepper, sage leaves and rosemary sprig.  We'll be using the water later, so it seasoning now is a perfectly good idea.

Next, mince the garlic and finely slice the shallots.

Then, slice the parsnips on a diagonal. I was lazy and didn't peel mine, but you could if you'd like.

I opted to chop my mushrooms despite the fact that they were pre-sliced.  I find the pre-sliced pieces are just too large for soup and like them smaller. This is totally optional.

Lastly, finely chop the parsley.  You could skip this too if you'd like. I don't love parsley so for me to tolerate it at all, it needs to be in small pieces.

I chopped all my veggies super fast so my chicken wasn't yet cooked. Never to waste a minute, I got the puppy dressed in his Halloween best. He's the butler, you can call him Wadsworth. Yeah, I know it's gross that my butler doesn't wear pants.

Still had some time to kill, so I got the Halloween candy ready. Yes, handing out candy is in direct conflict with my dislike of Halloween, but I can't let down the children.

More time to kill. Goodness I am fast at chores.  Well, the natural thing to so is start drinking, right? How about some bourbon and apple cider? Yes, I think I will.

Finally, the chicken was cooked. Remove it from the water, but save the water.  Then shred or chop it into small pieces.  Mine was still a tad bit raw, but that's okay because it finished cooking in the soup.

Now, get to cooking. Heat a soup pot over medium heat and add a bit of olive oil.  Once it's hot, add all the veggies.  Stir them up and cook for about 5 minutes.

Next, add the chicken and rinsed and drained chick peas.

Now, add the broth, both the saved chicken-cooking water and additional broth of your choosing.  I added about 5 cups total.

Lastly, add some hot sauce and any salt or pepper you'd like.  Bring this to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer for at least 20 minutes or until the parsnips are cooked through.

To serve, top with a bit of the chopped parsley.  If you've already made a cup of bourbon-cider or have a giant bowl of candy nearby, those too make excellent friends for this soup. Enjoy!

I've had a bad day chicken soup

The past 24 hours of my life have been particularly frustrating/maddening/annoying.  Whether this is because I perpetually allow the actions of persons who may or may not give two hoots about my well being upset me, or for some other reason, I really cannot tell.  I'll spare the details since I have no idea who actually reads this blog and just move onto the soup.  There are a few things in life that always make bad days better for me. In no particular order and not an exhaustive list: Brian (usually futilely) attempting to cheer me up, walking the puppy, cupcakes, lizards running on my back patio, and chicken soup. 

For this I've had a bad day chicken soup, you'll need: 2 carrots, 1 parsnip, 1/2 an onion, 3 stalks of celery, 1 turnip, 1 potato (mine is purple. PURPLE!), 3 cloves of garlic, 1 chicken breast, 1/4 cup pesto, 2 cups of spinach, 1/4 cup pastina pasta and chicken broth.

First, get the chicken breast in some water and boil it.  I only used one chicken breast since I didn't want to make more than a few servings of soup.

Next, work on the vegetables.  I peeled the carrots, parsnip and turnip. Then diced them and the onion, celery and potato.  As per usual, the garlic was minced. If your day has been bad enough to necessitate tears and you cry when chopping onions, this veggie prep time is an excellent time to get a good cry in as well.  If you ♥ the color purple as much as I do, you may find yourself cheered up by the potato. 

By the time you finish with the veggies, the chicken should be done. Remove it from the pot, but reserve the water.  Allow the chicken to cool then shred or chop into bite sized pieces. If you're pressed for time, or just like efficiency, shred the chicken while the veggies are cooking during the next step.

Now, for cooking.  Heat a bit of oil over medium heat in whatever pot you'd like.  Once it's hot, add all the veggies at once, cooking for about 8 minutes. Next, add the reserved chicken cooking water, more broth and the cooked chicken. I added about 2 cups of broth.

Stir in the pesto.  My pesto was homemade compliments of an unexpectedly large crop of basil.  Brian made it for last week's Sunday supper entree of pesto crusted pork loin, and (in usual Brian fashion) doctored it up with some gorganzola cheese.  If you don't live with a top notch chef and don't have a fridge full of inventive left-overs, store bought pesto is a-ok.  Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes.

Lastly, add the spinach and pastina and cook for 5 minutes.  I really like pastina because it's little star pasta and reminds me that I'm a super star even when others try to convince me that I'm not.

To serve, you could top with a little cheese, since cheese makes everything better (provided you aren't lactose intolerant). I didn't add cheese since I had extra special cheesey pesto. Enjoy!

Pozole

Last Thursday was Mexican Independence Day. I know this because my boss is Mexican and usually brings in a treat to share on this special day. She did not do this last week. Instead, I took it upon myself to make a Mexican treat of my own in the form of this Pozole, and no, for you Atlanta peeps, I clearly do not mean the restaurant in the Highlands, though their food is quite tasty.

For this baby, you'll need: a few chicken breasts, some sort of spicy seasoning like ancho chili powder, 1 medium onion, a few cloves of garlic, 5 or so tomatillos, hot peppers of your choosing, 2 cans of hominy, 4 cups of broth, 5 radishes, 2 avocados, 2 limes and a whole mess of cilantro.

First, get the chicken breasts boiling in a medium sauce pot over medium-high heat. Two chicken breasts ought to do the trick. To spice things up a bit (literally) I also threw in about a tablespoon of ancho chili powder and a pinch of the Blivmore proprietary spice mix known only as 'use sparingly'.  'Use sparingly' is the dehydrated and powdered form of all the hot garden peppers we've been growing. Its name isn't just an idle warning. Let the chicken boil, uncovered for about 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, mince the garlic and hot peppers.  I intended to use one jalapeno, one very small and very curvy banana peppers, and a serrano. After tasting the chicken boil water and the heat that 'use sparingly' imparted onto it, all these peppers were not used (after all, I do like my taste buds and didn't want to kill them).  I also diced the onion and tomatillos. Yes, those green things are tomatillos and not granny smith apples.

Next, rinse and drain the hominy. A few thoughts on hominy. Being an Italian girl from Rhode Island, I had absolutely no idea what hominy was. I first heard of it in a Tori Amos song and, given the context, I had a suspicion that it was food.  Fast forward several years and some by-the-seat-of-my-pants education in Southern cooking and I've learned that it is indeed food, specifically a corn product with very little flavor of it's own, and an uncanny ability to look utterly unappetizing in photos.

By now the chicken should be cooked. Remove it from but do not discard the cooking water, and shred it any way you like. I spent a good three minutes deciding whether I detested shredding chicken with two forks more than I detested washing the food processor, finally settling on the two fork method (evidenced by the attack fork in the photo below). I left my chicken pieces quite large, mostly due to laziness and hatred of fork shredding.

Now it's cooking time. In your favorite large stock pot, heat a bit of olive oil over medium heat.  Then add the vegetables, cooking for about 3 minutes. 

Next add the broth, both the leftover water from boiling the chicken and 4 cups of other broth. Finally, add the hominy, chicken and a pinch of salt. Increase the heat to bring to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer. Let this simmer for at least 30 if not 60 minutes.

While the soup is doing its thing, prepare all the soup toppings.  I spent a good portion of my Saturday researching what actually goes onto a bowl of pozole. I settled with sliced radishes, diced avocado, fresh lime juice and a bunch of cilantro.  I found many other recipes that added lettuce or cabbage to the bowl of pozole but I didn't much like that idea. Enjoy!

Fiesta Chicken Soup

In honor of Cinco de Mayo in a few days, I thought it was appropriate to cook something a little Mexican-inspired.  I was thinking tortilla soup but didn't really want to make or buy tortilla chips. Instead, I present what I'm calling Fiesta Chicken Soup.  I'm going to confess that I was a tad bit hungover while making this soup on account of Dube's Seafood Fest 2010 the night before. I openly admit that there are some inconsitencies between the pictures I'm presenting and the actually reality of this soup. I will also admit that I nicked two of my fingers while chopping veggies, not bad enough to bleed, but bad enough to notice, especially since I rarely nick a finger when chopping veggies. It was a tough morning.

For this soup you will need, a pound or so of chicken; garlic (not pictured, inconsistency #1); one large onion; hot peppers of your chosing, I used one serrano pepper (inconsistency #2, there are two pictured); some corn; half a pint of cherry tomatoes; one bell pepper; two avocadoes; a can of black beans, two cans of diced tomatoes with jalapeno peppers; broth of your choosing, cilantro (inconsistency #3, I'm pretty sure parsley is pictured, but I did actually use cilantro); and salt, pepper and cumin to taste (inconsistency #4, chili powder is also pictured, though no one other than Brian knows that the little red spice jar has chili powder in it and not some other spice).

First, boil the chicken in enough broth to cover, to prepare it for being shredded.

Then start chopping veggies. First I minced three garlic cloves.

Next, I diced one large onion. This was a vidalia onion but any large onion will do. Set the garlic and onion aside in a bowl together.

Now, the peppers. I started with dicing the bell pepper.  I especially liked this bell pepper because it was both green and red at the same time. Though it only looks orange in the picture. It was not orange in real life.

Next, mince the serrano pepper.  I did not remove the seeds because I wanted the soup to be hot. If you don't like hot food, probably omit the serrano or use a milder pepper. Set the peppers aside in a bowl together.

Onto the tomatoes. I sliced them in half and set aside. You could probably leave these out since there will be plenty of tomato-goodness from the canned tomatoes, but I had these in the house already and wanted to use them.

Lastly, the avocados. I sliced them into squares in their skin, popped them out of their skin and set aside.

By now your chicken should be cooked. Remove it from the broth, but do not discard the broth.

Ask one of your hungover friends to shred the chicken for you. Hopefully your hungover friends are as pleasant as my hungover friends were and are willing to help (thanks Cort!).

Take the bagel bites out of the oven that you had to make for said hungover friends as payment for shredding the chicken. I said my friends were nice enough to help, obviously helping came with a price. Happily, I was hungry too, bagel bites are delicious and I never mind feeding my friends.

Now, back to the soup. Heat a bit of olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Then add the garlic and onion.  Cook for about 5 minutes until the onions soften.

Next, add the peppers and cook for another 3 minutes or so.

After rinsing and draining, add the black beans,

the canned diced tomatoes,

the fresh, sliced tomatoes,

the chicken broth, both the broth reserved from cooking the chicken and additional broth, 8 cups total,

and the shredded chicken. Increase the heat to bring the soup to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 20 minutes.

Add the corn.  I used a cup of frozen corn, but canned or fresh would work as well. Simmer for another 10 minutes.

Give the broth a taste and figure out what else it needs. Mine was pretty spicy on account of the serrano pepper and jalapenoes in the diced tomatoes. But I added about a tablespoon of ground cumin, pinch of salt and some fresh ground pepper.  I also shredded about a 1/4 cup of fresh cilantro and threw that in. Let it simmer another 10 minutes.

Aboutg 5 minutes before serving, throw in the avocado.

Put in your favorite bowl and set aside for a few minutes to cool. Enjoy once its cooled off enough to not burn your tongue, since burnt tongue + spicy soup = an unhappy eater.  This would be good topped with a little cheddar cheese and more cilantro.

Now, what to do while your soup cools? If you're like me, you were headed to Turner Field with the adorable puppy for their semi-annual Bark in the Park. It would be a shame if Harley didn't look a little special for this big day out. It was way too hot for the tuxedo, but the perfect temperature for a spiked mohawk.  For those why haven't spiked a mohawk lately, its not that easy, especially on a squirming dog.  Start with making the dog sit in your lap, and get the cheapest can of hairspray you can find. Spray the mohawk with wild abandon, after all, this needs to last all day.

Using your hands, there is no better tool for this, continue pulling the mohawk fur straight up and holding until the hairspray dries.

Then take your dog to the ball park, where he will receive many a compliment from people who have never seen a dog with a mohawk and calmly sit at your feet during the game.