Soul Mosaic

For any of you under the weather, nothing like homemade chicken soup. Here’s my recipe, something my husband and I cobbled together using bits and pieces of two recipes in the book: 1001 Delicious Soups & Stews, 2nd ed., Edited by Sue Spitler with Linda R. Yoakam, M.S., R.D. The two recipes are on pp. 284-5, Chicken Noodle Soup and Country Chicken-Noodle Soup. We adjusted things to suit our own preferences. It’s not quick – but it’s worth the effort:

HOME-MADE CHICKEN SOUP:

Part I: Stock

1 whole broiler or stewing chicken (about 4 lbs.), cut up
4 quarts water
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. dried marjoram
1 small onion, cut up

Heat to boiling, then reduce heat and simmer until chicken is tender, about 1 hour.

Remove from heat.

Scoop out the chicken pieces and set aside.

Strain the broth, removing and discarding the boiled onions, used bay leaf, and any chicken skin or bones.

At this point, if you are in a hurry, just go directly to Part II. However, I prefer to put the strained broth in the refrigerator overnight, and I do the same with the plate of chicken pieces. I find it easier to remove the chicken meat from the bones and skin the next morning when the chicken is cold, not to mention you avoid burning your fingers. Also, refrigerating the broth allows as much dissolved fat as possible to solidify on the broth’s surface. The next morning I just scoop the fat off the broth’s surface. I just don’t like fat.

Part II: Finishing the Soup

Remove all meat from the chicken bones. Discard skin and bones. Shred the meat into small chunks and set aside.

Slice up 3 cups of carrots and 4 cups of celery (including some leaves)

Dice up  ½ onions (Omit this step if you hate onions (like me), or add more if you prefer)

Saute the carrots, celery, and onions in 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil in the bottom of the soup pot, until tender. About 5-7 minutes

Add to the sautéed vegetables in the pot:
the strained chicken broth and the shredded chicken pieces
1 tsp. dried marjoram
¼ cup diced parsley
splash of dry sherry (optional)

Bring this mixture to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until chicken and vegetables are tender, about 15-20 minutes.

Next, return soup to a boil and add about ½ lb. of egg noodles or angel hair pasta nests, crumbled.

Cook 3-7 minutes at boil, depending on the size of the noodles.

Season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve.

Well, with a title like that, you just have to see what’s going on, right?

Between allergies and viruses, some cold got me. So it’s a day on the couch watching movies, something I do infrequently. I will need to get back up and running soon as I have too many fun and interesting things to do, like finish painting the seascape I’m painting, figuring out why Photoshop keeps crashing and preventing me from getting more pictures up on my blog, and finishing the blog piece I have started for my book, Under the Pier, about commercial fishing. I haven’t forgotten that one, just a temporary reprieve to feed the soul with my oil painting.

Besides, I need to get going so I can do the oil paintings of the diner – one interior, one exterior – and for those projects, I will photograph the whole process, from beginning sketches, through picture completion.

I already have more pics of the seascape I’m finishing, the painting, Uncertainty, and for my book, Under the Pier, some shots of a map I made of the town area, and the diner blueprint. As soon as my geek dude husband can figure out how to fix Photoshop on my computer, I’ll get those posted, so stay tuned.

Fiddler crab pregnancies. Yes. TWO pregnancies. BOTH Scarlett O’Hara AND Melanie Hamilton are pregnant !!!!  This is Melanie’s first. I have been feeling under the weather and slow to get the spare tank ready. So I need to get moving on the “fishless cycling” for re-establishing the nitrogen cycle in that tank and also making sure the salinity is “brackish.” We’ll see if I can’t succeed in getting those babies to make it to adulthood yet. Again, stay tuned for an update….I knew something was up when BOTH females started hanging out in the water filter. It seems that something about the water currents going through that filter, appeals to pregnant female fiddlers. Probably reminds them of the water currents needed to send their babies off into the world…..

Today’s movie lineup is geared toward restoring body and soul and hence, quite varied. Given I feel less than powerful, that’s always a sign I need to be reminded of the power of “drive” so I will start with the movie, Patton. To balance that out, I will follow that up with the 1949 movie, Come to the Stable, (will someone PLEASE tell the movie’s owner to PLEASE put it on DVD already!!!!). It’s about two nuns trying to build a children’s hospital in the hills of western Connecticut and starring Loretta Young, Celeste Holm, Hugh Marlowe, and Elsa Lanchester, one of my favorites for providing equal doses of humor and blind faith. Also on tap, Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves in The Lake House, a love story of soulmates that also touches on the power of faith while waiting, and weaves in literary giant, Jane Austen’s novel, Persuasion. Last will be Professor Elizabeth Vandiver, in one of the Teaching Company’s college course on DVD: Classical Mythology.

So it will be a varied day, with much food for the spirit. On tap as food for the body: home-made chicken soup. I made the stock yesterday, and finished it off this morning. I’ll provide the recipe in today’s gift, for anyone else out there who’s under the weather and in need of good homemade soup to kill off a cold! Enjoy.

Oh, and lastly, a favorite part of the movie, Patton, one of the more introspective moments that reveals Patton’s more sensitive, soulful and literary sides, an excerpt from a poem he wrote about reincarnation and his being in soldier many many times over the centuries. Enjoy!

‘Through the travail of ages,
midst the pomp and toils of war,
have I fought and strove and perished,
countless times among the stars.
As if through a glass and darkly,
the age old strife I see,
when I fought in many guises and many names,
but always me.”

Excerpt of a poem by General George S. Patton, from the movie, Patton.