Feel Better Soup

It seems that soups have been on my mind a lot lately, but hey, it's officially winter now. 'Tis the season for warm soups!
My work days are filled with chats about menus, service, procedures, construction, sodas and creamers. Opening a restaurant is hard work, and I know I'm only being exposed to a fraction of it. We spend lots of time talking about wonderful food and horrible food (usually someone's bad experience at a restaurant recently).
And while I'm surrounded by discussions of wonderful food, it seems I haven't been cooking too much lately. Perhaps that's why I was eager to make a great soup for a friend who was not feeling well.
The soup was a basic chicken noodle. What sets it apart is its homemade egg noodles borrowed from my Great Grandma Peach's recipe.
I'll share the ingredients and the techniques. I won't, however, tell you exact portions of ingredients. Now this isn't because I've turned into a food snob whose dishes are too good to duplicate. Quite the opposite.
I simply don't keep track. The meal came from the heart, guided by close attention to my sense of smell and taste.

I started the soup by roasting bone-in chicken thighs that had been drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper.
While the chicken is roasting, take out celery, two medium onions, a few carrots and sprigs of herbs such as thyme, sage and rosemary.
Rinse/peel veggies. Roughly chop a couple of the celery stalks, carrots and one of the onions. Place the rough chopped veggies in a stock pot. Rinse the herbs, and place in the pot, stem and all, if you're lazy like I am.
Take remaining veggies and slice more thinly for the soup. Store covered in the fridge for now. Fill the stock pot three-quarters of the way with water. Add a generous dose of salt. Then add a little more. Set aside.
Once the chicken is cooked through, remove from the oven and let cool until you can handle it. At that point, get ready for the mess.
Ready yourself by donning kitchen gloves if you have them. Set up your meat cutting board, a garbage bowl for skins and a storage container for the chicken.
Begin removing skins and pulling meat from the bone. As you remove the meat, pull it apart into bite-size chunks. Put the meat into the bowl. Place the cleaned bones in the stock pot.
Once this process is complete, cover the chicken and stick in the fridge. Put the stock pot on the stove top and turn on high. (It should be filled with veggies, herbs, salt, water and bones.)
Bring the water to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer. Now it just needs time. A couple of hours.
Start on the noodles by taking about two cups or so of flour. Add salt. create a well in the flour. Crack two eggs into the well. With a fork, break the yolks and begin slowly incorporating the flour. Be gentle with the eggs during this process, too much handling will toughen the noodles. Once you get the dough formed, generously flour the board and the top of the dough and roll with a rolling pin. Repeat until the dough is thin (think pie dough only a bit thinner).
Then I take a pizza cutter to cut the noodles from the dough. Once they're cut, toss with a little more flour and spread them out on a flat surface to dry for about an hour. Once they've become slightly dry, move them to the fridge until the last minute.
When the soup stock tastes right, remove from heat. Pour through a sieve or cheesecloth to separate solids. Discard veggies, herbs and bones. Return liquid to pot. Add remaining veggies as well as frozen corn and peas to the pot. Bring to a boil to cook veggies. Pull the chicken and noodles from the fridge to rise to room temp.
Once veggies are cooked through, turn the heat to lowest setting and let set for a couple of minutes. Add the noodles and immediately stir to make sure noodles don't stick. Add the chicken.
Stir soup and keep on low heat for a few more minutes.
When the soup is done, serve immediately or store in covered containers for the fridge or freezer.
Serve with a green salad and warm bread!

Morocco revisited

Since Dina was going to be stuck at home on her birthday, we decided to take dinner to her. She was craving a taste of Morocco, so I volunteered to bring the main dish.

This was my first attempt at cooking Moroccan food. Ever. I'm glad for this.

Had I tried to cook the dishes before going there, I likely would have found it complicated. I would have certainly misunderstood the food, not to mention the people.

Having visited Moroccan families in their homes, sampled their food and shared great times with friends over steaming communal dishes of chicken, dried fruits and couscous, I have a better understanding of the food, and, of course, the people who lovingly prepare it.

Wander the markets in Meknes and Fez to see vendors selling dried apricots, figs, dates, prunes and raisins. Nuts of all kinds. And spices shaped into mounds so colorful and brilliant they become a piece of art on their own. The food isn't mysterious. Nothing comes in boxes with unpronounceable chemical names. In fact, on your plate it looks very similar to the raw product in the market.

So for Dina's birthday I make a chicken dish cooked with apricots, prunes and almonds. I added saffron and some tagine spice I bought from Abdul's friend Yassin. The spice mix is called "head of the store." Abdul told me this refers to the man who runs the shop. Each man creates his own spice blend. Yassin's was delicious.

Here's the basic way I cooked this meal. I'm not offering amounts because this dish is simple enough. Simply add what you need or what you have available. Don't make it complicated. Enjoy the company and the recipe is a success.

Ingredients

Bone-in chicken (I used thighs)
Olive oil
Saffron (if available)
Dried apricots
Dried prunes
Whole almonds
Onion, sliced
Salt
Spice mix

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Create a spice mix by combining red pepper, cumin, turmeric, ginger, pepper, cinnamon and salt. Use about 1/8 to 1/4 tablespoon per serving.

Fill a small dish with about a cup of warm tap water and drop in a few threads of saffron. Set aside. Slice onion, set aside.

Add olive oil to coat a large pan. Heat to medium-high. Add chicken, salting while cooking. Lightly brown one side. Flip and brown the other. Add saffron water and all other ingredients. Stir over medium heat. Add about a cup of additional water and cook down for about five minutes. Remove from heat.

Place chicken pieces in an oven-safe dish. Pour liquid and other ingredients over the top. Cover with foil and bake 40 to 45 minutes, depending on the size of chicken pieces. If you are making this dish for a dinner party, simply leave in a warm oven until ready to serve.


As an appetizer I served this Moroccan salad. I took some to Abdul, who said he approved. I made it with eggplant. And go easy on the red pepper; the amount called for makes it very spicy. The recipe is simple, but I suggest prepping all of the veggies and spices first. That will make cooking the dish very easy. Serve this room temp with some bread for dipping.

I got this recipe from a random Web site, so no credit to me!

ZALOUK - MOROCCAN SALAD (Bensafiddine)

Ingredients:

2-3 green peppers (this salad can be made with eggplant instead of green peppers)
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
3-4 small tomatoes, chopped
1 medium onion, minced
2 tsp. red pepper
2-3 Tbs. tomato paste
1 tsp fresh parsley, minced
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. powdered ginger
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. cumin
olive oil

- Put the green peppers on an open flame or under the broiler until the skin is burned black; put the peppers in a plastic bag rubbing briskly between the hands to remove the burned skin (if you are using eggplant instead of peppers, char them in the same manner, but simply scrape off the burned skin with a fork)

- Sauté the onions and garlic in the olive oil over medium to high heat; when the onions have become soft add the peppers, tomatoes, red pepper and other spices; when the tomatoes are soft add the tomato paste; lower heat, cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes

- Allow to cool before serving, sprinkle with minced parsley

Better than Marie Callender's

A few Sundays ago I got a hankering for Chicken Pot Pie. I'd made the dish before, but it had been a while. And I think I used Veg-All. I wondered if I could make a pie better than Marie Callender's.

I think I did it. The secret to good homemade pot pie is to make a homemade sauce. Anything canned simply tastes too salty. It overpowers the veggies. Making a white sauce isn't difficult, and once it's tackled it opens the door to lots of hearty dishes.

The best part about the pot pie was it was way easier than I thought it was. The trick to cutting down on the prep time is to have the chicken already cooked and use the ready-made pie dough. Although I didn't try it, I'm thinking that you could prep the whole thing and pop in the fridge if you wanted to wait a bit to cook it. The leftovers kept us happy for days.

Ingredients

Two cooked chicken breasts, cubed
Two medium carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
One small onion, diced
One large potato
1 cup peas (thawed, if frozen)
2 cups warm milk
3/4 cup flour
3 to 4 tablespoons butter
One package of Pillsbury's ready-made pie crust (in the dairy section of the grocery store)

Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Line a deep pie pan with crust. Set aside top crust.

Combine the chicken and vegies in large bowl. Set aside.

Warm the milk just enough to take the chill off (in the microwave is fine). Have the milk, flour and a whisk handy next to the stovetop. Melt the butter over low heat, watching until the white flecks and foaminess is nearly gone. Then, slowly add the flour while continuously whisking. The mixture will begin to thicken. Whisk, cooking the flour and butter together on a low-medium heat for about a minute. Be sure not to burn the mixture, pulling it away from the heat or lowering heat as needed. Then slowly add the milk in small batches. Whisk to encorporate. Repeat until all the milk is used. Let the sauce cook over the stove top until thick. It should take only a couple of minutes until it can coat a spoon. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Remove the sauce and pour into the bowl of veggies and chicken. Mix to coat. Pour the veggie and chicken mixture into the pie shell. Top with second crust and crimp edges. Cut a few vent holes in the top crust with a sharp knife. Brush with melted butter for a more golden crust if desired. Cover with foil.

Bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and cook another 10 minutes or until crust is golden and sauce is bubbling through vents.

Welcome to my table

After Julia Child’s death in 2004, I was reading a story in a newspaper summarizing her contribution to the foodie trend well before the likes of Rachael Ray and Giada De Laurentiis when I ran across a quote from the original vivacious cook.

“The dinner hour is a sacred, happy time when everyone should be together and relaxed,” she had once said, eloquently articulating a sentiment I’d long felt.

My own love of the dinner hour comes from my childhood. I can remember busting through the front door and seeing my mom hovering over hot, bubbling grease with flour-dusted fingers and watching chicken thighs turn a brilliant gold. Along with the fried chicken always came mashed potatoes. The real kind, made from a pile of dirty spuds, peeled and boiled and whipped together with butter and milk. And, without fail, she'd take some of the grease and make a cream gravy speckled with black pepper.

Even as a kid, it registered that this was a special meal, but not because of expensive cuts of meat. She spent no extra cash on pre-cut chickens; she bought the whole bird and cut it up herself. The meal was special because it was a labor of love. It took time. It made a mess. But it was impossible to not have a wonderful feeling sitting around that dinner table.

Food is powerful.

It feeds our bodies and spirits, serving as a cultural touchstone.

And while we may still be able to connect and be sustained by our contemporary food culture, it surely lacks an essential element of that sacred, happy time about which Child spoke.

My goal is to help people make those connections once again. To buy fresh food, trusting their guts not their grocery lists. To learn a few basic kitchen skills that open the door to creativity.
And, most importantly, to cherish the dinner hour.

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Watch this site for weekly recipes. I'll post a quick how-to on a meal I've made recently.

Sometimes I'll also post some of my favorite family recipes. And I may also sneak in some tips, fun stories and happenings from my kitchen.

I hope you find this useful, heartwarming and fun.

Above all, enjoy.

- Amy