More questions than answers!

Whatever happened to Mom's chicken soup?

Is it me or does it seem like this past year the world is not feeling so good?

I know Mom's chicken soup is supposed to fix everything, but how can we make the entire world eat chicken soup at the same time. How big of a pot do we need? I hear things like "If you have cold symptoms you should see your doctor", where in the old days we would just eat a cup of soup or two, drink lots of water from the tap (yes, from the tap) and we would be back at school the very next day.

My dad had stories of himself going to school in four feet of snow wearing running shoes, no jacket and up hill both ways and we thought that was crazy talk. If he was alive, what would he say today listening to the radio (yes, I said the radio)… I wonder if I would still be able to walk to school by myself unsupervised. Have we changed that much? When and why did it happen?

Are we condemned to a life of misery and diseases? Whatever happened to “Eat your crusts and you’ll grow up strong”? How many crusts are we talking about, and are there enough crusts for the entire world? I ate crusts, a whole lot of them, and I am told that I still need to get vaccinated so I don’t contract some horrible virus.

I really feel ripped off, Mom! What have we done with our world?

This is a nice chicken soup, but don’t go kidding yourselves, it’s only soup and even if you eat it with both ends of your loaf of bread it is still only going to take you so far.

A)

1 medium onion, chopped

1 carrot chopped

1 piece of celery chopped

1 whole raw chicken remove the two breasts, and two legs and save them for later. Leave the thighs to create a great tasting stock. If you wish, you can also roast the bones in the oven first to add color and concentrate the flavors to the bones.

Water

1/2 bunch of fresh parsley leaves

B)

1 medium onion, chopped

1 carrot, peeled and chopped

2 celery stalk, chopped

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves or fresh if you can

Salt & black pepper

1/2 bunch of fresh parsley leaves

Chopped chicken - breast and leg meat (from the chicken in A)

Stock:

Cook the first 3 ingredients from A) in a large soup kettle until soft. Add your chicken bones, parsley and cover with at least 4 liters of water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2 hours or until the liquid reduces by half. Strain the stock through a sieve and keep the liquid and meat from the thighs if possible, throwing out the bones and veggies.

Soup:

Take the same pot and cook the first 3 ingredients from B). Once they turn soft, add the rest of the ingredients including the chicken stock you saved and simmer 15 minutes or so. Check for seasoning and add more salt and pepper if needed. You can add plain cooked noodles or plain cooked rice or chopped cooked potatoes in the last 5 minutes.

Don’t forget to serve with bread!

Martin

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