soup for years

My boyfriend bought me this book as a belated birthday gift. Watch out guys!!! Everything in it sounds delicious, I cannot wait to pick one at random and get started!

Easy Chicken Noodle Soup

What is better when you are feeling a little sick than a huge bowl of home made chicken noodle soup? Well I didn't really know until I decided to try to make it myself. I read through about 20 recipes, all of which stated to boil a whole chicken to make your own broth. I did not want to dedicate an entire day to making my soup, so here is the recipe I came up with.

3 smallish boneless skinless chicken breasts
8 cups chicken broth
1 celery stick, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
a handful of sliced mushrooms (optional)
1 onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
6ish oz egg noodles
a few shakes each of basil, thyme, dill, rosemary, sage, oregano
a bay leaf
salt and pepper

So, first things first. Saute the onion. Add the garlic, carrots and celery. Add the mushrooms if you want to include them. Add your seasonings, including a little salt and some pepper. I also added a dash of cayenne pepper. You don't have to use all the ones i listed, but I am really glad I did. Once the veggies are all cooked, add the chicken broth. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to mediumish. Add the chicken breasts and let them cook in the seasony broth for about 20 minutes or until cooked through. Remove the chicken from the broth and shred it. Put it back into the broth and let is simmer a little while on lowish mediumish heat. Taste your broth and if it tastes amazing, turn the heat up a little and put in your egg noodles. When they are done the soup is done! Today mine tasted a little too salty so I added in a couple cups of water. Made the soup a lot more brothy than the first time I made thish and I think it tastes a lot better too.



YUM. I am feeling better already.

Spicy Cabbage Soup

So, this is probably a pretty terrible first post, and long overdue! Let me just say that for the past few months, I have been making soup constantly. My blog co-conspirator, Vanessa, is the person who taught me the basics of making soup and I have seriously been making at least one pot of soup a week ever since. Soup is so easy to make, so much easier than most other recipes, and so delicious and fulfilling and usually not too unhealthy. We have made a ton of soups already, together and individually, but this blog is an attempt at documenting our many soup adventures. I am sure that V will do a better intro later. By later I am hoping that I mean soon. *hint hint*

So the first soup I am going to write about is my Step mom's Cabbage Soup. I grew up eating this soup, at home and also at the local Mexican restaurants. Having pretty much lost touch with this part of my family, I thought I would never be able to eat this tasty spicy treat ever again unless I went to Vince's back in my hometown. My good good friend Jessie made a few calls for my birthday and got me the recipe! Of course I had to make it immediately.


Here is the recipe that I transcribed from a voicemail:

1 cabbage head
1 large onion
3 beef bouillon cubes
1 tbsp cumin
1-2 tbsp chili powder
3 chopped carrots
1 can tomato juice (size??)
1 can water (again, size??)

Chop cabbage, carrot and onion
Put in pot with 1/4 cup oil, sautee
When sauteeing cabbage, add cumin and chili powder so flavors will be released in the oil as its sauteeing.
Add tomato juice, water, bouillon. salt and pepper to taste.
Simmer, eat.


As you can see, the measurements are not too exact. We used about 2 cups of tomato juice and I put in a good deal more cumin and chili powder. Instead of beef bouillon, we used beef broth and thus omitted the can of water, but if I make it again I will try the bouillon.

The final product was pretty tasty, though not exactly how I remembered it. V and I agreed that it would be really good with rice in it, or maybe potatoes. I also think some garlic might add a little extra flavor. I also feel like it should have been a little spicier, even though it was already pretty spicy. This is the kind of thing that I feel like I could tweak the recipe and get it to taste just how I remember it tasting after a few tries, but seeing as how it gave Jessie and V the worst farts ever for days, I am not sure when I will be making this again.




Please pardon my terrible photos of this soup, and my finger! Bon Appetit!

~Michelle Suzanne