2010-01-09

devohoneybee: (Default)
2010-01-09 06:09 pm

my chicken soup recipe

This is mostly from my mother's version, with a few of my own twists.

Ingredients:

Kosher chicken (ESSENTIAL!)
onions
garlic
carrots
parsnips
parsley root
celery root
parsley
celery
tomatoes
small red potatoes

optional but strongly recommended:
ginger
leeks

seasonings:
salt (but if you're using kosher chicken be aware it's been salted and reduce accordingly)
pepper
caraway seeds, about a half teaspoon full
other herbs/spices to taste

1. Clean and prepare vegetables:
Keep leeks, onions, garlic, and ginger root together. Peel the garlic (about 5 cloves), peel the onion and leave it whole but with a partial cross cut. Chop the leeks to small bits.

Chop celery. Peel root vegetables except celery root as desired, chop to bite sized chunks. Peel celery root but leave celery root in largish chunk or 2. Depending on size, a quarter or half of one is enough. Quarter tomatoes. Use potatoes whole or quartered, depending on size. Wash half of parsley and leave in big sections.

2. Saute leeks, garlic, and ginger to the point of deep aroma wafting around the entire kitchen, if not the house. Add spices while sauteing except for caraway seeds. Coconut oil is surprisingly nice for this. Olive oil will also do.

3. Quarter chicken and add to pan to sear meat.

4. Add water and the rest of the vegetables and the caraway seeds.

5. As water boils, skim off the foam.

6. Simmer until everything falls to pieces, or, you know, sooner if you don't like it that way.

7. Chop the remainder of the parsley and toss in the last minute of cooking.

Optional: (my mother's method) Separately steam garden vegetables such as peas, pea pods, brussel sprouts, carrots, and add to soup in last minute to keep distinctive flavors.

This is the soup of awesome!!!!! Enjoy with relish! Don't forge to freeze a portion of the broth for emergencies.
devohoneybee: (Default)
2010-01-09 07:02 pm

movie recommendation: The Visitor

This is a small, quiet movie I saw last night on cable. About a year old, I think. Features a tired-out professor who visits his New York apartment (he lives mostly in Connecticut) and finds inadvertent squatters there (they had been scammed into thinking it was a legitimate rental). The man is Syrian and the woman is from Senegal, and they all begin to get to know each other. Stuff happens, and then some other stuff happens. There are no car chases, no gun shots. The white man does not save the "natives." This is a very quiet, touching, human story, very un-Hollywood. Much recommended. The professor is played by the same actor who was the father in Six Feet Under.