Chicken Soup Weather

Hey, you talkin’ to ME?

All I said was, “Why don’t I get any of that soup you’re making for papa?”  And of course I know I can’t have any, but could you, next time, just put the bird in the pot with some water and let ‘er rip so I can partake of the white meat therein? (Whatever that means.)

SOooo…here’s what mama does for That-Of-Which-I-Cannot-Partake Chicken Soup:

First get a chicken. Haha.  Mama used to ask her butcher for all the bones he carves out of the breast meat and then she paid a small sum and made the soup with those, but now there are no butchers and no carvings out and so she gets organic whatevers she can get, legs, thighs, half a chicken, any pieces you happen to like a lot and into the pot they go.  Then she adds 2 sweet onions, 2 sprigs of celery with leaves, 3 sprigs of parsley, 2 big carrots, all chopped coarse (NOT COARSELY!), and a good grind of pepper, about 1/2 a teaspoon of salt and 1 cup of white wine (optional, of course) and brings that to a simmer. She skims off any funny stuff that might rise to the surface, and then she simmers the whole shebang on LOW, covered but with the lid a little off the pot, for about an hour.

All that nice meat can be used for all sorts of things–some in the eventual soup, some for chicken salad (if it’s white meat), but unfortunately, NONE FOR ME$#%@&!!

So it goes.  I’ll just stick with my poor little serving of kitty food and pine over what’s in that pot.

Now, the winter soup:

2 sweet onions, chopped fine

2 cloves garlic, chopped fine

3 carrots, sliced

2 inner stalks of celery, sliced thin

1 large potato, diced

A few slices of fresh fennel bulb, chopped fine

Cooked cannellini beans and their juice, if you have any around.  Throw them in, too.

1-2 cups homemade tomato sauce or 2 big tomatoes, whizzed up in the blender

Salt and pepper to taste plus 1 tiny hot pepper, if you like that sort of thing

Any leftover juices from anything good you cooked before making this soup

A generous squeeze of lemon

Any of the chicken you wish to add to this soup

Simmer until all vegetables are soft and serve with pesto (or pistou, in France) on the side and fresh grated parmesan.

Well, that was exhausting, talking about something I AM FORBIDDEN TO HAVE!

Hey, I have an idea–Leave the chicken out and I’ll handle that part and you do the chopping.  Mama, a good sous chef is hard to find.

HEY, I did NOT do that! Patience is a virtue and THIS chicken was not in a SOUP! Yet.