Basic Chicken Noodle Soup For Two

I know what you might be thinking.  It's the end of summer, it's 93° out... why are you making soup?  Well, starting on Friday I came down with a nasty cold.  Thankfully I'm starting to feel better, but now Paul is starting to show symptoms.  Great.  It is his first week of grad school and I don't want him to feel as crappy as I did the last few days.  I have nothing to do today, so I figured some good old chicken noodle soup would be a nice thing for him to come home to.  The problem is, it's hot as hell outside, and I don't want to make things even hotter by having a pot of soup simmering on the stove all afternoon.  So I decided to go for my trusty Crock-Pot.  I know my tastiest soups have started with sweating the mirepoix in butter, and letting the soup simmer for a couple hours, but A) I have a lot of chores I'd like to get done today after laying in bed the last 3 days, and the Crock-Pot is the perfect solution; and B) it's HOT.  I'm sure this will still be tasty, but most importantly, I want it to be healthy and hearty.  And that it is.

I pretty much threw this together spontaneously, so this is the closest I can come to a recipe.  It's very interesting and challenging to write recipes for meals in which I "wing it" -- but I just make sure I pay attention to the amounts I'm using as I go along.


Basic Chicken Noodle Soup For Two [for a small slow cooker -- about 4-6 cup capacity]

• 1 skinless boneless chicken breast, cut into chunks
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 2 medium carrots, chopped
• about 1 cup of chopped onions
• kernels from 1 ear of corn
• salt and pepper to your taste
• 2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped; or 1 1/2 tsp dried parsley flakes
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin
• enough chicken broth to fill your slow cooker about three-quarters full
• 6 oz. noodles

1. Combine first nine ingredients in the slow cooker; cover and cook on low for 4-5 hours.
2. Cook the noodles separately and add just before serving.

Veggies.

Everything but the broth and seasonings.

Labeling is your friend.

All ready to cook.

This is cooking as we speak and it has a few hours to go.  I was anxious to write a long-overdue new post, so consider this an unfinished work.  Check back later tonight for an update on how it turned out!

UPDATE:

That's one chunky soup!

 
Turned out pretty good!  This was a VERY hearty soup -- I may even venture out and call it a stew.  But that is basically what I was going for.  Chunky, lots of flavor, chock full of good nutrients.  I still prefer to make soup on the stove-top, but this was a great option for a hot day.

Cheers,
L

Slow-Cooked Thai Chicken Thighs

I love chicken thighs.  I love Thai cooking.  I love my Crock-Pot.  Put all three together and this is what you get.

Slow-Cooked Thai Chicken Thighs for a small slow-cooker (2-3 quarts), adapted from busycooks.about.com

• 3 chicken thighs (skin-on/bone-in or skinless/boneless, whichever you prefer... I prefer the former)
• 1 cup medium chunky salsa
• 2 heaping tbsp smooth peanut butter
• juice of one lime
• 1/2 tbsp fish sauce
• 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1-2 inch piece of ginger root, grated/minced
• dash of Sriracha
• big handful of unsalted peanuts, toasted and chopped
• 1 green onion, chopped
• about 4 lime wedges

1. Place chicken thighs in slow cooker.
2. Mix together salsa, peanut butter, lime juice, fish sauce, soy sauce, ginger, and Sriracha.  Pour over the chicken.
3. Cook on high for 3-4 hours.
4. Plate the chicken and sprinkle with peanuts and green onions.  Garnish with lime wedges and squeeze juice over the chicken before eating.  Serve with rice or noodles (I chose rice).

Before mixing.

After mixing.

Quite possibly my favorite thing in our fridge.

Chicken thighs nestled in and ready to cook.

Ta-da.

Pretty soon I'm starting a part-time job that will have me working from 4pm-9pm on weekdays.  Good hours in terms of convenience (I can still go on interviews & get a ton of stuff done during the day), but not the greatest for someone who likes to cook dinner, because I sure as heck won't feel like cooking when I get home at 9:30.  So, I have a feeling I'll be using the Crock-Pot quite a bit over the next several weeks on days when Paul won't be cooking (did I mention he is a great cook too!).  Any good recipes?  Send 'em my way ;)

Cheers,
L

Tomato Sauce from Scratch

I had the blessing of receiving a whole big batch of home-grown tomatoes from Paul's mom's garden.  They are unlike any tomato you can buy in the store; sweet, tender, juicy, yum.  Unfortunately, there were more tomatoes than I knew what to do with, so I decided to try a batch of tomato sauce (something his mom had also done while I was staying at their house this summer).  I pretty much winged it, eyeballed everything, and threw it in my (CUTE) mini slow cooker (I'm usually cooking for two -- it probably holds about 3 or 4 quarts). Here's my "recipe":

Homemade Tomato Sauce

• 4 medium vine-ripened tomatoes
• 2 tsp tomato paste
• 3 cloves garlic, pressed
• a few shakes of dehydrated minced onion
• generous helping of whatever herb you have on hand (all I had was dried parsley for now)
• salt and pepper, to taste

1. Place the tomatoes in boiling water for 30 seconds. Remove, peel, and chop to your heart's desire. Place tomatoes in slow cooker.
2. Add tomato paste, garlic, onion, herbs, salt, and pepper. Stir.
3. If, like me, you want a less chunky sauce, stick your immersion blender in there and puree.  I blended until there were just a few tomato chunks left.
4. Cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 3-4 hours.

Mine's still simmering, so I'll have to update this post and let you know how it turns out.  Seems pretty foolproof to me, though.  I plan on boiling some frozen (yeah, I know) gnocchi tonight or tomorrow and using the sauce for that.

Cheers,
L

UPDATE: Great success! The sauce was sweet but not too sweet, and had a nice kick from the garlic.  The only negative was that it came out a bit watery -- next time, strain the tomatoes after chopping & before adding to the pot.

 Gnocchi (from frozen) with Homemade Tomato Sauce, Freshly Grated Parmesan & Romano Cheese