Time Warp

So I thought I last posted sometime in July. Turns out if I just wait a few more days it will be a full SIX MONTHS!! Summer happened. Fall happened. There are stories and laughter and photos too. Hopefully they will arrive sooner than later and be a slight bit entertaining. For now though I have promised to return to sharing my words and thoughts and creations. Particularly food creations.

Yesterday I made soup. It was not a super hard soup. It was leftover soup. Perhaps we should start with the Monday night crockpot dinner that was the main contributor to the leftovers.

Monday night chicken...
One roasting chicken (I prefer organic)
One lemon
One white onion
Two cloves garlic
One sprig rosemary
Fresh cracked pepper and sea salt
How to: slice the lemon into pretty circles about 3/8 inch thick, slice the onion into wedges (I usually cut it into at least 8ths), chop the garlic smallish. Layer the onion (save a bit out and put it into the cavity of the chicken) and lemon on the bottom of the crock. Add the chicken to the crock. Cover the top of the chicken with garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper. Add 1/4 -1/2 cup of water to the crock. Turn on high for 1 1/2 hours then turn on low for another 3-4 hours.

Why the varied cook time? I am starting this at lunch and bopping home between my 6 pack at 6 class and my 7:30 Firestarters class to check on it. I used the meat thermometer and turned it off when it was 175 degrees. By this time it was falling off the bone and the crock was full of juice!

Leftover Soup
We did not eat all the chicken. I just put the crock in the fridge for leftovers. Then yesterday when it was time for dinner I pulled it out. I put the whole contents into a stock pot and added a quart of broth. The broth can be purchased broth or some that you made and stored for later (expect news on this next week!!). I brought the whole thing to a boil. While it was boiling I did stuff, cleaned the kitchen, searched out veggies, fed the animals. What veggies did I find? Baby carrots (great they were already peeled!), a couple of sweet potatoes, some fresh kale, the remainder of a bag of broccoli, and some already cooked veggies that wanted to be eaten up. All the veggies were cut into bite sized pieces. Once the broth mix was boiling I strained it out. The chicken bones and meat need to be picked through and the veggies need to go into the broth to start cooking. While the veggies were getting going I picked the meat off the bones and added it to the veggies and broth. The soup was ready in about an hour!! Cutting the veggies into bite sized pieces makes the cooking time FAST. The lemon gives the soup a refreshing taste. We did find the soup needing a bit of salt and pepper but I usually like to add that in later anyway.

Next up? Adventures in fiber from the summer!!