Kitchen Rambles

Well, no... he isn't part of the kitchen stuff but he is cute , so there. He likes to look out the window to check out what is going on.

Sick person soup. :-) I like to have broth on hand for whatever I feel like doing. It comes in extremely handy when you are sick and need to throw something together fast. I'd made this broth up before I fell ill and then I was able to just throw some onions, garlic, carrots , pre-cooked rice and a touch of cilantro (at the end) for a very nourishing and comforting soup.

Elly May was reading "Her Father's Daughter" again by Gene Stratton Porter again and there was a recipe for cactus candy she wanted to try. So we found some at our local farmer's market and she went to work peeling them. Not as easy as it might seem at first.

They are rather flabby when finished..

They get chopped and soaked in cold water overnight. You end up with this really mucousy liquid that is not unlike dog drool... anyway, that gets drained and then the nopales pieces are simmered in a sugar water mixture until it all cooks down . Then they are laid out to dry into little candies.. I didn't have any but I hear they are super sweet.

Bread.. the staff of life.

Aren't they beautiful?

A crown of rolls.. she made these for the lamb stew we had .

It was very very yummy. I even had lamb bones left over from 2 lamb legs we'd had earlier in the year at Passover and I made lamb broth out of those after roasting them. We had bought a whole lamb (well , it was frozen and in pieces..) from Chaffin Family Orchards (same place our chickens come from) and it was (and still is) absolutely delicious. Very very tender and not gamey at all.

Dog pile.. I can't see how this is comfortable but they seem to think it is. I know I wasn't that comfortable. They are heavy bruisers. But we all wuv each other vewy much. :-)

A Soup Kind of Day

Look at those gorgeous eyes... well. They are closed , but he is gorgeous anyway. No cone collar!!! Anyway, today was overcast and cloudy. People are coming down with colds and what not (hopefully not me!!!), and it just felt like a soup kind of day. And any soup, starts with the broth. You MUST have good broth or stock. We do most things from scratch around here... though we didn't go so far as to kill our own chicken this time (I have done it in the past though) .

Oh, and good bread is good with soup too. Sadly, we don't have any today as the in house baker is coming down with whatever is currently being shared around here virus wise... but this is from a few days ago. And we can pretend it was here to go with the soup.

Okay , Great Stock 101... Brown your bones in the pot and add onions. Chicken backs make the best stock (this is from an organically fed, pasture raised chicken from http://www.chaffinfamilyorchards.com/ ) Then after you have brown bits on the bottom of the pan, turn the heat down, cover the pot and let the bones sweat for about 15-20 minutes. This brings a lot of flavor out and makes the whole stock process go a whole lot faster . Then add wine, I like vermouth, scrape those brown bits off the bottom of the pot (that is a lot of your flavor) , add water and bring to a simmer.

Now just with the bare bones of what we did already would make a pretty good stock. It is what I do most of the time. But we wanted a really really good stock for soup here. So we dumped in a lot more. I was using mushrooms in the soup so I pulled off the stems and used them in the stock, as well as ginger, smashed garlic , some Anaheim chili's I had , bay leaves, thyme , some sage and rosemary. Oh, and cilantro added later because it was fresh and doesn't need to steep to long.

When things come to a simmer, skim off the fat and whatever scum comes to the surface. I realize this might be easier before you add all the other goodies... then you aren't trying to fish around pepper seeds and bay leaves... Then just let all this simmer for about an hour and voila.. on to soup.

For our soup du jour, we started with onions , browned in some of the fat from the chicken broth.

Then add mushrooms and garlic... lots and lots of garlic. We had about 2 heads worth.

And of course I forgot to take a picture of the carrots, the celery, the tomatoes , and the rice going in... oh, and the broth... ladled and strained in from the pot behind.. but here it all is together.

We have company while we are working....

I added salt, some soy sauce (organic only!! no gmo's please.) , some black pepper .... and I think that is all I threw in.. It had to cook about an hour for the rice to be done (it was brown basmati rice) . Then dressed with chopped cilantro. I like it way better than parsley. Anyway, it smells really really really good. Secrets in the stock. ;-)

Now imagine that good bread with it and you have it. :-)