Chicken Chowder

First put on some music you like to cook too. Today I was listening to Johnny Cash.

Start off with either turkey or chicken. Both taste the same once they are in soup anyway. I just covered it in tin foil and place it in the oven until it was cooked through 

 Soup basics. Carrots, Onions and Potatoes 

 Garlic 

 Slice up the onions and cook them until soft in bacon grease. We save ours in a glass jar in the fridge

 I use a garlic press but mincing your garlic is allowed 

 Toss it in with your onions

 Add some Thyme 

 Cook that stuff up until the onions are caramelized and everything smells like a bit of heaven

 Peel and slice up your carrots 

 Peel and dice up your potatoes 

 Make about 8 cups of broth and dump it into the potatoes and carrots 

 Dump the onion mixture into the potatoes and carrots 

 Ta Da

 Cook on medium until the carrots and potatoes are soft 

 At this point the turkey/chicken was finished so I chopped it up and added it to the vegetables which I had dumped into the crock-pot 

Give everything a good stir and this is what you will end up with. You can add a dash of heavy cream to each bowl to make it creamy but it is lovely just this way too. 

Chicken Gnocchi Soup

I learned about this recipe from Olive Garden. I have made several of their soups and this and Zuppa Toscana are the favorites in this house. I would highly suggest that if you have leftovers to heat them up slowly and stir because if it burns the dairy separates and the soup can not be saved. Lesson learned the hard way. Lets get started.

Some celery

Chopped up. You readers should be thankful you do not have to watch me chop. It takes a very looong time.

Onions

Chopped. Oh the tears I cried as I chopped these.

Garlic

Thank goodness I could use the garlic press here.

Oh my thighs. This butter will catch up with me one of these days

Olive oil

Dump it in

Dump in the aromatics. 

Cook them until the onions are clear.

Dump in some flour

Cook for a couple of minutes.

Ah...my thighs again. Some whole milk

Cook slowly until thickened

Get some carrots and peel them

And shred them. Thank goodness you don't have to watch this either.

Now for the Gnocchi. Gnocchi is a form of potato pasta. You can buy it frozen at the store but since I am a master chef, I made my own. (superior smile)

Spinach. I am using some old frozen stuff to get rid of it. It tasted fine.

Dump it and the carrots into the soup.

Add some chicken. Again this is leftover. No waste. 

In the pot

Served up

Some Parmesan Cheese

on top. Enjoy!

Noodles Preview

I have learned to make noodles. I will give instructions in future about how to do them but here is a picture of the finished product drying.

Fried Rice

Fried rice is the best way to get rid of leftover rice. This dish does not look amazing but it tastes great. 

Chop up some onion. If you have green onion that is even better. It makes it look pretty.

You need some Sesame Seed Oil. It adds the correct flavor.

Two eggs

Soy Sauce.

And some leftover rice. I am using leftover brown rice. 

Crack the eggs and add some salt and pepper.

Mix it up.

Put some oil in a skillet.

Heat up the oil and dump in the eggs.

Dump in the onions.

Cook up the scrambled eggs.

Remove from the pan and add some more oil to the skillet...

Add the rice and stir fry.

Stir and stir until the rice is all heated up. 

Dump in the eggs.

Stir them in.

Add the soy sauce. Pretend this is a picture of me adding that ingredient.

Not very pretty looking. If you had colored peppers and green onions to add it might look a lot better!

Doesn't mean it doesn't taste very good.