Nourish Thyself

 Many bloggers choose a 'word of the year', and considering that I've been cooking up so many soups this winter in the Crock Pot, which is an appliance seeing a great deal of use in our kitchen over the past number of years, I am choosing the word 'nourish'. 

 It's what so many of us do on a daily basis.... my husband included, who loves to cook, but at times enjoys a break from it and allows me to make a few things that I enjoy.

My specialty is crock pot cooking.  I leave the fancier things for him, but blending a lot of flavors all together in one big pot, especially during the winter months is what I am all about.

 AND, although I DO enjoy his cooking, nearly all of his recipes are tomato based.  Give me a great chicken based pot of soup and I am one happy little wife.

 *photographed through the crock pot lid*

The thing about soups is that you can follow a recipe 100%, or you can simply read a recipe, get the gist of what flavors it contains and then simply punt.

Sooooo, here's what I made, and I did allow my husband to assist with the slicing and dicing of the veggies simply because with two of us working on this, we were in and out of the kitchen twice as fast.

 

 I wanted a BIG pot of soup so that we had enough to freeze for the long, cold winter ahead of us, which if the past couple of weeks' temperatures return, we will need plenty of hot nourishment.

RECIPE

Ham, Potato and Veggie Soup

Two 32oz cartons 'unsalted' chicken broth

Sliced or cubed ham

Handful of cubed potatoes.  I used baby reds, but it's your choice as to what kind of potatoes you use.

Three sliced carrots

Two stalks sliced celery

Cauliflower (sliced flourets)

Two cans white/northern beans (drained and rinsed)

Three or four cloves of garlic (sliced)

A few shakes of parsley

Two bay leaves

Two hours before we ate we addded sliced cabbage, but only a cup since I did not want this to become 'cabbage' soup, which I had made not so long ago.  I wanted to taste the ham, potatoes and the beans more than the cabbage this time around.

We rarely use measurements when making soups, so you will simply need to play with the amounts you use.

To us, soups are generally 'whatever you throw into the pot', and they always taste delicious.

We also try to use unsalted broth since the ham has salt.

Here are links to other ham soups if you need more specific measurements and directions.... my recipes, although yummy, are for the not so faint hearted cooks who don't need exact measurements.

Classic Ham and Bean Soup by Susie at Simply Sated (looks delicious!)

Crock Pot Ham and Bean Soup by Holly at Spend With Pennies

Eat well.
Stay nourished and warm.
Ciao!

Thai Chicken Cabbage Soup

 Sunday we decided to roast a whole chicken.... we rub it down with EVOO and then sprinkle it with rosemary and roast it until it has a fine crisp.  It was delicious as always.

 So that was Sunday evening's meal, along with sweet corn, and then we had more of the chicken on Monday evening.... but by Tuesday afternoon we decided that we didn't want to have roast chicken for the third day in a row.  I was considering what we could do with that whole head of cabbage in the refrigerator also.

And so it was that my husband went in search of a recipe and found THIS ONE, which is what we used with a few tweaks as is always the case in this house.

 The recipe called for leeks, which we didn't have, so we used a sweet onion, and we chopped the entire medium sized head of lettuce into large pieces. and of course we used garlic, being the half Italian guy that my husband is... he can't cook much of anything without adding garlic.

This is a thick soup... almost like a stew, but let me tell you.... it filled me to the brim and did not leave me hungry for a cookie or any kind of sweet food later in the evening.  

I WAS FULL!

Very satisfying on a cold winter's evening.

 The only thing we added after it was in our bowls was some fresh ground black pepper

 and a bit of Sriracha sauce.

Here is the link to the recipe.... 

and

below

are the changes/edits we made.

We used our leftover rosemary chicken and shredded it.

We used a sweet onion since we had no leeks.

We used a couple of handful of frozen sliced packaged carrots from our freezer.

We used medium shell pasta since we had no egg noodles in the house.

We used Sriracha sauce after the fact since we had no Thai sauce in the house.

It's a very forgiving soup recipe, so substitute what you have on hand and ENJOY!

January Thoughts

January.  It's cold.  It keeps me indoors with lots of time on my hands to think, ponder, dream, and wish I were somewhere warmer.  No plans to travel, so I'll just sit here and ponder instead.

I've been pondering these things.

This sofa on Houzz.

So tired of all the bland house photos with whites, grays and no personality.

Guess I'm old...

Give me color!!

*photo source Houzz*

J's cute outfit, but unfortunately the blazer is sold out in my size.

Love this LOOK with it's clean lines and ease of wear.

This fun t-shirt.  

AND a fun sweatshirt too!

*image source*

*image source*

Eating another bowl of thai cabbage soup leftover from last night.
YES it was homemade and I'll post the recipe soon!

Downloading this CD even though I won't listen to it until next Christmas.
It just sounds so pretty!

The impending snowstorm!
Yes... it's on the way!!

Enjoy your chilly January Day!
XOX

Cold Weather Food

 My husband felt the hint of a cold coming on so he soaked in the big boy jet tub Thursday night, then spent a lot of hours beneath warm blankets in his recliner chair Friday morning.

I headed out to get groceries, including all the makings for homemade soup.

Well....

let me tell you....

That time spent in his recliner sure bounced him back to life and he spent the afternoon making homemade soup atop the stove;

minestrone, which is our favorite and probably the easiest soup to make too.

Once it was done we sprinkled a bit of parmesan cheese on top.....

 

and did I tell you he also made homemade bread?

I mean, what's soup without bread?

He feels 100% better today and there will be enough soup for quite a few winter meals.

*when it comes to making bread.... make two and freeze one to bake later*