Saturday, December 31, 2005 

Mary Lu's Kick Ass Chicken Soup - Part 2


Mary Lu's Kick Ass Chicken Soup
(Normal Pot Size: I revised and made this recipe tonight, to use 1 chicken and a smaller pot.)

Ingredients:
1 Roaster Chicken from the Deli, Garlic or plain Roasted is fine. BBQ and Lemon Herb no way.
2 64 oz containers of Chicken Stock (and equal amounts of water)
1-2 cups of sliced carrots (depends on how you like them)
1 medium 3-4 inch turnip or parsnip chopped 1/2-2/3 inch cubed
2- 2 1/2 cups of chopped celery
1 medium 3-4 inch white onion, chopped fine
2-4 cloves of fresh garlic minced, or 2 tablespoons minced garlic
1-2 Bay Leaves
1/2 cup of celery and parsley leaves chopped fine
1 12 oz bag of egg noodles - pick the type you like

Optional: One bottle of white wine and one loaf of French Bread.

Procedure:
1. Pour 1 and 1/2 cans of chicken stock and equal amounts of water in a large stock pot. You are going to need a pot with a lid of at least 6 quarts or more. Turn on the heat and bring to a simmer.

2. While you're waiting for the stock to simmer, clean and chop all fresh veggies and garlic, then add to stock with the bay leaves-- EXCEPT the chopped Parsley & Celery Leaves. Toss it all in the pot, and simmer with lid on for 45 minutes.

3. While your waiting for the veggies to simmer, de-bone chicken and rough cut into 1/2-3/4" cubes. You will need a minimum of 3 cups or more depending on how meaty you want it.

4. Note: You can use the skin for flavor, However if your latest Cholesterol test was over 190-200, leave them out. If you use the skin, you will need to fish the skin out , along with the bay leaves before you serve it.

5. Stir in the Chicken, and parsley/celery leaves, season to taste and put the lid back on to simmer for another 30-45 minutes.

6. Add the remaining chicken stock and bring back to a simmer before you add the noodles, and cook until the noodles are done.

7. Turn off the pot and allow to rest for 20-30 minutes before serving, as it will be too hot to eat.

8. Serve in big bowls with warm French Bread and a glass of wine. Enjoy!

Options: In place of noodles you can add eat the soup plain as a chicken vegetable, or add 1 1/2 cups of rice and cook until the rice is done for Chicken Rice Soup. Soup can be frozen without noodles or rice, and reheated later.

 

New Years Resolutions


It looks like Dave Sifry at Technorati is collecting 2006 New Years Resolutions.

Normally I despise making resolutions for the normal laundry list of reasons. The other day I was sorting out my postcard collection and found this Victorian card that summarized exactly how I felt about the coming year.

Therefore be it known that my New Years Resolution is: I resolve to get the best of everything, but not let anything get the best of me!

Be safe, have fun and Happy New Year!

 

ChickenSoup MaryLu Style

PLEASE NOTE THE CORRECTIONS BELOW, AND I'VE WRITTEN THE PHYSICAL RECIPE ON DEC 31, 2005.

Okay, yes Jeneane tried to shove a bowl of her Famous Chicken Soup thru' the internet for me the other night. I wish the guys at Skype would have figured out how to solve this problem before they gave me VOIP. It's worth more money in the long run guys. Trust me on that.

Since Ms. Jeneane is sharing her family trade secrets AKA the Chicken Soup Recipe, and LA is about to get one heck of a good rain coming in today, I thought I'd share mine. May be this will start some kind of trend.

Follow along this goes pretty fast, requires you go to the grocery store and a basic grasp of playing with fire-- err... cooking.

Mary Lu's Kick-Ass Chicken Soup

Head out to the grocery store and pick up a couple roasted chickens. Here in LA chickens run about $5-6 each, around here Costco or Sam's Club may be cheaper. Do not buy the lemon herb or BBQ'ed ones-- they make lousy soup. The garlic or plain roasted chickens work fine. The reason for roasted vs.. fresh chickens-- they save time! Grab a 2-64oz cans of chicken stock, a bag of carrots, a small celery, a medium white onion, a bunch of parsley, and a garlic bulb if the chickens aren't garlic roasted, I like 1-2 medium-sized turnips, but you can do without if you can't find then or don't like them. Buy a bag of the best egg noodles you can find. Yes they can be fresh noodles vs. dried one. However follow the instructions on cooking times. The noodle width is your choice. Sometimes we use the skinny ones, other times the wide ones. But don't skimp on the quality. If you don't have Bay Leaves, pawn your soul and pick up a jar, it will be worth it. Oh yeah grab a loaf of French or sourdough bread and some wine. The go WITH the soup, not in it!

Okay you're home. Get yourself a glass of wine. This is supposed to be fun. Let the chickens cool. Clear off some counter space and get out the largest pot you own. Mine is a 12-qt Calphalon like this, and I'd like another one. (It is on my Amazon Wish List.) In my humble opinion it's the best large pot ever made. Reason is it's heavy, heats evenly and is tall. Tall pots are a secret to making good soup, because you are reducing the stock and water and intensifying the flavors. But I digress. Moving on...

Put the pot on the stove and pour in 1 and 1/2 (64 oz) CANS of the chicken stock and an equal amount of water. Put the other 1/2 qt of chicken stock in the 'fridge for later in case you need to add more liquid to the soup. Add 2-3 bay leaves. Bring the mixture to a simmer, while you...

Get out your chopping board and throw all the veggies in the sink and clean em! Use the peeler on the carrots and turnips. Skin the onion and the garlic, exposing the cloves. Save the green celery leaves for the soup. Now if you have a food processor get it out and put in the slicing and the chopping blade, it will save you time. If not get started chopping up the carrots, celery and turnips into bite-sized pieces you'll eat. But not too small. Mince the onion and 2-4 cloves of garlic fine. Chop the celery leaves and the parsley until you have about 1/2 cup total. Set those aside in the 'fridge until it's time to add them. By now the stock mixture is simmering. Add all the veggies to the stock, put on the lid and bring it to a SLOW BOIL.

While you're waiting for that to happen-- Clean off the chopping board and your hands. You are about the handle the chicken. ('Nuff said.) Take a sip of wine. Remove the chickens from the pans (save the drippings,) and de-bone chickens. I like Jeneane's idea of saving the wings and legs for a spare meal or snack, but it depends on the size of your chickens. Here in LA chickens are small. So I use both of them. But if I have large chickens, I save a half a chicken breast for salad instead. So let your conscience be your guide. Because this soup is a meal, rough cut the chicken large bite sized pieces-- not too small, or they will fall apart in the stock. Because I like the flavor, I chop-up and add the chicken skin, and the drippings from the bottom of the roasting pan to the pot for more flavor. However if your latest Cholesterol test was over 190-200, leave them out.

Now-- open the stock pot with a potholder, and stir it up. Remove the bay leaves if you can find them. Add the chicken and the parsley/celery leaves. Put the lid back on and reduce the fire to low simmer. Stir every 10-15 minutes. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and find a baking sheet.

Slice up the bread, wrap it in foil, put it on the baking sheet and stick it in the oven to warm for 20-25 minutes at 325 degrees.

Since the maid isn't working today, go clean up the mess you've made, and finish your glass of wine-- for about 30-45 minutes.

*** Note on how to portion and freeze end of recipe.

At this point, if you're going to add salt and pepper to taste, now's the time. But if you've been told to knock off the salt, there's enough in the stock to make it taste good, trust me. Also if the stock has reduced too much add the reminder of the stock out of the 'fridge. If you add the stock, bring the soup back to a simmer or low boil. Then add the bag of noodles and stir and put the lid back on. Bring the soup to a slow boil it for 15-25 minutes, stirring every 5-10 minutes, Or follow the times on the noodle package. Make sure the noodles are done. Take the lid off and let it rest for 5-10 minutes before serving, because at the moment it's too hot to eat.

Serve it up in big bowls, with the hot bread, with may be a bread topping of your choice, and finish off the bottle of wine with the rest of the table and enjoy!

***Portioning and Freezing, and options in place of noodles: Okay-- this is a large pot of soup. However if you're creative, and don't mind cooking once, freezing a portion of it and eating it several times and/or in several variations, you are getting your best bang for your bucks. Plus it's better for you than that canned stuff.

Here's how... If you stare into the bottom of the pot and there's way too much soup for you to eat in the next 2-3 days. Get out the cool whip, Tupperware containers and portion out some of the Chicken and stock mix and freeze it. You can make individual portions to take for lunch. Choice is yours. Do not over fill the containers, it expands when frozen. Also let it cool in the fridge or counter before you freeze it. It saves your electric bill. Also, I never freeze soup with noodles, rice or pasta. It turns to mush when thawed and reheated. So I save them to add later when I thaw it out.

When I thaw out the soup stock I normally microwave the container with the lid loosely on the container. Then transfer it to a pan, add some noodles, pasta or rice. (Leftover cooked rice is quick and works well.) Simmer until the noodles, pasta or rice are done. Add a bit of water or stock if it reduces too much.

One other thing-- if by chance you have leftover canned stock, put it in a Tupperware or plastic bag and toss it in the freezer. Use it within 6 months. Thawed stock can be added to mashed potatoes for skinny mashed potatoes or other recipes when needed.

Thursday, December 29, 2005 

Welcome and What's Up

First off: thanks to Doc and Jeanne and several dozen others of you who have emailed and called since my last post. You have NO idea how it feels to be reconnected with many of you. It's the best holiday present I could get.

Second: When I decided I wanted to begin blogging again and moved Mary Lu's Blog du Jour to here, from Userland I decided to separate my personal from my professional weblog. So the professional opinions and copies of reviews, opinion pieces will be on The Pixel Ranch weblog site.

Does anyone know how (or who) to get a complete copy of my Radio weblog? I don't think I have the entire thing backed up on my hard drives.

Hope it all makes sense--

Tuesday, December 27, 2005 

Merry Christmas-Happy Hanukkah-Happy New Year

Here's the latest news
Many of you have written or called during the holidays, please don't take my lack of follow up as bad manners. I have barely had time to take a shower let alone write here. While I've written about the good things that happened during the holidays, I have not mentioned the rest of the story--

Dr. D's mother Evelyn, fell a couple weeks ago, and by way of Kaiser's ER got exposed to the flu. She ended up back in the hospital before the 23th and over the holidays was moved to a nursing home. We expect to have her back home in a couple weeks, once she gets her strength up.

The Good News: Well, after months and months of searching, Dr D's has taken a position at a local hospital as Director of Pharmacy. He started the new position today. Keep your fingers crossed for him.


After our adventure with Santa Claus late on Dec 24th, we decided to celebrate my birthday at Canter's Deli on Fairfax, in LA. For those of you not from LA, Canter's is an LA Institution, like Zabar's in NYC. It is open 24/7/365 on Fairfax Ave, just North of Farmer's Market and CBS's Television City Studios. The place was very busy for midnight, and had a great meal was had by all. On the way out we snagged a box of cookies and sweets. Some for us. Some to take to Evelyn to brighten her holidays. Peter snagged some cheesecake for his folks.

Oh by the way if you're going to CES-- Canter's is now open 24/7/365 in Las Vegas inside Treasure Island by the sports book. I'm hoping we get to go out for a couple days, but if Doc's having problems getting a room, I'm not holding out a lot of hope! We shall see.

Family and Friends have been bugging me about putting up a Wish List for the holidays. Here's the link to my Amazon Wish List.

That's about it for now... more as we know what's what!

Sunday, December 25, 2005 

Confessions of a Midnight Santa

Please note the names have been changed to protect the persons involved.

Yesterday amidst the booking calls of Santa for his Christmas Eve visits, I took a call from a great mother who wanted Santa to come for a late night visit into West LA. This wasn't your normal mother and it wasn't your normal Santa call.

Mom explained that her son was one of those kids who questioned EVERYTHING. He still kinda-sorta believed in Santa, but he was at the age where he needed "proof" Santa existed.

To this end he had planned an elaborate "trap to catch Santa" by putting up the family video camera and had laid the official Santa bait by setting out cookies and milk on the coffee table. Mother was beside herself.

Mom needed Santa to come in, play to the camera and delivery Son's goodies. From my standpoint, this sounded like fun!

After several telephone calls during the day and between other "visits" Santa and his Elves arrived about 11:30 PM. We met Mother outside and went through the scene and what she needed Santa to accomplish. To top it off, Son had insisted on sleeping on the sofa making keeping himself even closer to the "trap." While this would normally cause tons of logistical problems, this kid slept like a rock! So Santa, loaded with his sack of goodies set out on his mission.

Santa entered the living room to see the youngster passed out. This is good. He carefully but quickly read the note, nibbled on the cookies and milk, left the presents in his stocking--- and all the while panning to the camera, gave a wink and exited.

When reviewing the tape we checked out Santa's performance, to find the tape ran out just as Santa winked to the camera, and was leaving. Magic huh? Mother was thrilled!

Knowing now that Mother finally got his goat... and gave him proof... just made our Christmas even brighter. Even the Elves giggled about it all the way home! It just goes to show how much a Mother will do to prove-- Yes, there really is a Santa Claus!

Merry Christmas - Happy Hanukkah to everyone!

Wednesday, December 21, 2005 

I Spent the Evening with Santa Claus

Posted by Picasa Last night I had the pleasure to assist a special friend, the one and only Santa Claus at a personal appearance at the Christmas Show at St Rita's School, in Sierra Madre.

As Santa's official event photographer, I took over 125 pictures of the children and sometimes even their parents with Santa.

True Confession: Last night was one of the most enjoyable evenings I've spent in all my years since I came to California. It's amazing what an evening with the kids and Santa, enjoying Christmas can do for your spirits. I miss when I used to go with my Father and Santa to pass out the Toys for Tots presents at the hospitals and group homes.

Some of you have asked if my Santa makes personal and home appearances, check out Santa's appointment booking notice on Craig's List and call to book your last minute visits if you are in the LA and Orange County areas.

It's been fun folks to enjoy Christmas with a real Santa! Ho! Ho! Ho!