April 14, 2021

April is in full swing and the weather has been unpredictable to say the least. Warmer days and colder days seem to fluctuate from week to week. The beginning of April brought forth rain showers and plant buds. This week brought back colder days and cozy socks. With the temps dipping this week, I just had to squeeze in one more comforting dish before Spring weather resumes. Earlier this week, my cravings for warm, comforting foods began to creep up again. This time, it was in the form of soup. I had recently been making a ton of soups – a soft food diet required by my dentist as I recover from dental work. As I graduate slowly back to firmer foods, I’ve been remaking another one of my favorite comforting soups, my golden chicken soup served with some cheddar scallion biscuits. I love the warm spices of cumin and curry in the soup. The spices add a deep earthy flavor, a beautiful golden hue, and some much-needed spunk to the soup. The addition of the cheddar scallion biscuits to the soup is reminiscent of a chicken pot pie. My golden chicken soup with cheddar scallion biscuits is essentially a lighter version of chicken pot pie, but with a twist. To help add even more depth of flavor to the soup, I added a couple teaspoons of chicken bouillon powder. I like to use the Lee Kum Kee brand of chicken bouillon powder to flavor my soups. Growing up, my family always had a steady supply of the Lee Kum Kee chicken bouillon powder in the pantry. It was the basis of many quick soups, stocks, and flavor enhancers in family dishes. When I moved to the Midwest, I still gravitate back to the familiar flavors found in the soup base. The rest of the soup cooks up fairly quickly. Once I get started on the soup, I let it do its own thing while I shift my focus to the savory cheddar scallion biscuits. The biscuits come together almost as quickly as the soup. I decided on making a variation of my cheddar and chives biscuits by swapping out the chives for scallions. I folded into the biscuit dough some leftover shredded cheddar cheese from when I whipped up some cheddar crisps on St. Patrick’s Day. The combination of the sharp, savory cheddar and bright, pungent scallions makes for the perfect flavor profile to incorporate into biscuits. The soup with biscuits reminds me very much so of chicken and dumplings. Nothing warms the body and soul like a comforting bowl of chicken and dumplings. My golden chicken soup with cheddar scallion biscuits really does do the trick in helping me stay warm on both the inside and outside until the warmer weather returns.

November 23, 2020

The big feast (a.k.a. Thanksgiving) is just a few days away. Thanksgiving is one of the holidays I look forward to the most during the year mainly because it is one of the few times during the year where I can truly eat whatever carb-y, cheesy, comfort food I want. In anticipation of the big feast, I have been trying to eat lighter over the last few days. One of my favorite light meals to whip up in a quickie lately is my tomato basil soup served with parm crisps, my take on the traditional tomato soup served with grilled cheese. My love for tomato soup and grilled cheese goes way back to my elementary school days. Once every other week, the school cafeteria would serve up a variation of tomato soup with grilled cheese. If I didn’t feel like eating anything else on the school menu, I knew I could always count on tomato soup with grilled cheese. My cravings for the combo continued into my college years. Back in my college days, I would stock up on cans of tomato soup, loaves of bread, and precut cheese. These were the components I would use to build tomato soup and grilled cheese whenever my cravings for the combo kicked in. If I ran out of bread, I would use whatever carb I had on hand from naan flatbread to saltine crackers. As long as I had a carb on hand, I could convert it into a semi-grilled cheese. A couple weekends ago, I came up with the idea for tomato basil soup served with parm crisps when my cravings kicked in, but I wanted something lighter for an early lunch. Kevin and I had been invited to a small brunch at a neighbor’s home later in the day and we were both hungry in the morning, so I quickly blended up some tomato basil soup. The soup alone was not enough to squash my cravings for the grilled cheese component, so I ended up grating some Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese onto a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and crisping up the parm in the oven. What resulted was the most marvelous tomato basil soup served with parm crisps. The tomato basil soup was perfectly flavored with butter, garlic, onion, tomatoes, and basil. The parm crisps added a savory, cheesy crunch. My tomato basil soup served with parm crisps were the perfect pairing to help satisfy my cravings. Plus, it provided both Kevin and I the much-needed sustenance to hold us over until brunchtime. I loved the combo so much, I made it again and again in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. It was such an easy way to make a large batch of soup and divide the batches of soup up into smaller servings throughout the week. Whenever lunch time or dinner time rolled around during the work week, I could easily preheat the oven, crisp up some Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and serve the crispy parm with tomato basil soup for a quick lunch or dinner. With Thanksgiving just a few days away and the inevitable cooking marathon to occur, I could use a few meals prepped ahead of time. My tomato basil soup with parm crisps (along with my savory everything animal crackers) are just what I need to fuel up before Thanksgiving day rolls around. I will definitely be enjoying these keepers time and time again even after the holiday rush.

June 23, 2020

Whenever I roast a whole chicken, I like to find creative ways to use up any remaining chicken. One of my favorite ways to use up leftover chicken is to toss the meat into curried chicken salad or spicy chicken salad and save the rest for making chicken stock. I like to remove as much of the chicken meat off of the chicken first before tossing the remaining bones into a slow cooker. With just a few aromatics tossed into the slow cooker along with the chicken bones, I know I will have the most marvelous concentrated chicken stock the next day. I have been making chicken stock this way for years as a way to reduce waste. The concentrated chicken stock becomes the perfect foundation for chicken soup. Most of the time, I end up just enjoying the stock as is with a few additional vegetables tossed in for a simple soup. Other times, I toss in some cooked egg noodles to make chicken noodle soup or add in some rolled dough balls to make the tastiest chicken and dumplings. Last week, I had roasted a whole chicken to use for layering into homemade flour wraps. I saved the remaining chicken bones and roasted vegetables to make chicken stock in a slow cooker overnight. The next day, I used the chicken stock to make chicken soup with parsley dumplings. Typically, when I make dumplings for my chicken soup, I just combine some all-purpose flour, baking powder, kosher salt, sugar, water, and herbs to form dumplings. This time around, I added a few ladles of chicken stock directly into the dry mixture and ended up with the most flavorful fluffy dumplings. Adding chicken stock directly into the dumplings was such a game changer. I couldn’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier. Chicken soup with parsley dumplings is one of my favorite dishes to make and serve on cold, rainy days. Sipping on chicken noodle soup always seems to transport me back to all of the moments in my childhood where my mom would make hearty chicken soup as a way to nourish my health. My mom always made the best chicken soup. Her version uses a whole chicken, a few aromatics, and features a clay pot within a larger pot. I remember always watching her rinse the chicken, salt the chicken, and tuck the chicken neatly into a clay pot. She would then add a handful of aromatics, close the lid on the clay pot, and transfer the clay pot into a large pot fitted with a circular rack and tons of water. With a few clicks of the trusty old stove in our home in Brooklyn, the gas fire was lit. The large pot was left to cook undisturbed for hours upon hours. I never knew exactly when the chicken soup would be done cooking. I just followed my mom’s intuition as her internal timer told her when it was time to remove the soup from the pot. As I got older, I strayed away from my mom’s version of chicken soup. I began to taste other versions of chicken soup throughout my college years and into adulthood. Each family seems to have its own version of chicken soup. No matter how many chicken soups I’ve tasted over the years, I keep coming back to a simple soup featuring a combination of onion, carrots, and celery. These vegetables formed the foundation of my chicken soup with parsley dumplings.