Healthy Twists

Who makes soup when the weather is really warm and lovely out?

Oh, I do. But we knew that. This time I did something new though…I made the stock! But, first, backing up…

Over the weekend, we went to a small Passover Seder (yes, I know, we’re early. We don’t like to conform) and as I mentioned, I made Smitten Kitchen’s version of chicken with 40 cloves of garlic. I had a hard time finding pre-peeled whole garlic at the store, and I was about to admit defeat and buy some to peel myself, but I found it at the last minute. Thank goodness, because peeling 40 cloves of garlic would have sucked.

It was quite the production considering I don’t really have the right pans for the job, and I got quite a few oil splatters when I was browning the chicken, but it turned out incredible (at least in my opinion. (Seriously, if you’re looking for a knockout recipe, hit up SK. Hasn’t failed me yet.) I think everyone but me was afraid of the whole garlic cloves though, because no one had any with their chicken. That’s ok…more for me! The garlic was completely mellow and sweet-tasting.

Oh another tip: I used one of those mini-bottles of wine for this recipe. If you don’t drink wine often, they are great to have on hand for recipes where you only need say, 1/2 a cup. Much less wine to guzzle throw away.

I took home all the leftover chicken and last night, I got to prepping. I mostly used the leftover thighs, because I was afraid the white meat would dry out too much. I took as much of the skin off as I could, and added the chicken in my crock pot along with one onion, 3 stalks of celery, a bay leaf, a few of the garlic cloves o’love, and a small handful of peppercorns.

I loosely used this recipe as a guide, but of course I forget the part about boiling the water before adding it to the crock pot. So after draining the first batch of water, I set some water to boil on my stove and washed a million Tupperware containers while I waited.

You know what would be cool? A dishwasher.

I then chopped three carrots, the rest of the celery, one large onion, and half a shallot and put it in a baggie in the fridge. I also wrote down what I was planning on doing the next morning, because I know me and I didn’t want to do something dumb like forget to add the potatoes or something.

This morning, per my instructions, I took used my strainer to scoop out everything in the crock pot, tossing the veggies and shredding the chicken once it cooled down. I also tried to skim off any grease, but that was a little tough since I didn’t have time to refrigerate it. I added the veggies that I had chopped the night before, some potatoes, the shredded chicken, more garlic, and some salt to the crock pot and set it to cook on low all day.

I came home to a delicious-smelling house. I added about 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley (I should have added more).

It’s a little hard to make this soup look appetizing, but I was very pleased with how it turned out. It probably could have used some more salt, but I think it’s always easier to add salt to taste then take it away if you over-salt. I loved how fresh-tasting the soup was, and how the big chunks of veggies made it more substantial a meal.

Do you eat “weather-appropriate foods?” I know on the East Coast, some ice cream shops don’t open until summer months. That would make me terribly sad.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a marathon of 24 to watch. Saving up 2 or 3 episodes is the only way to watch it! Night.

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