Daring Cooks: STOCK TO SOUP TO CONSOMMÉ

Peta, of the blog Peta Eats, was our lovely hostess for the Daring Cook’s September 2011 challenge, “Stock to Soup to Consommé”. We were taught the meaning between the three dishes, how to make a crystal clear Consommé if we so chose to do so, and encouraged to share our own delicious soup recipes!

I'll admit it, when I first saw this challenge, I was not at all excited, but I missed last month and decided to just shut up and do it. I bought a beautiful and large (like 7 lbs) chicken, and then the thought of just boiling it to nothingness (well, stock) seemed like such a waste of such a nice chicken. So I thought maybe I'll do veggie stock and roast the chicken. But then I couldn't make chicken noodle soup (which my sick little self had been craving like crazy). So I did some research and discovered, you could make stock with cooked chicken bones. I can have my cake and eat it too! Well, have my delicious roast chicken, and still make chicken stock. It worked so well and both the chicken and soup were so amazing. I think I will do this with all leftover chicken bones from now on, so much more useful than just throwing them out. I am so glad I decided to participate this month, because I learned something new and ended up with about some really, really amazing soup!

Stock:
1 leftover chicken carcass, bones, skin, whatever you have (not meat) plus the organs (except the liver, it't the dark one)
3 carrots, peeled
3 pieces of celery
1 white onion, quartered
A handful of Parsley
A few sprigs of thyme
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp of pepper
1 tbsp of coarse sea salt
Water

Put the chicken parts, carrots, celery, and onions in a 10 quart stock pot. Fill the the pot with water until it covers the chicken and the pot is almost full, but leave 3-4 inches of space at the top. Turn the heat to high and add the herbs, pepper, and salt. Cover and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook covered for 4-5 hours (or longer). Strain the soup into a large bowl or another pot and discard the solids.

As I briefly mentioned above, I have been a bit under the weather and so has the boyfriend, so this one was a no brainer, there is nothing quite as comforting as some delicious homemade chicken soup.

Chicken Noodle Soup:
Chicken stock (from above)
3 carrots
4 turnips
3 pieces of celery
3 yellow onions
1 bunch of bok choi
left over chicken meat (I had 1 breast and 1 thigh from the dinner left, and added 2 boneless skinless thighs that were in the fridge)
1 bag of egg noodles, cooked

Bring the stock to a boil. Chop the carrots turnips, celery, and onions into large bite size chunks and add to stock. Cut the bok choi, whites and greens and add as well. Add the chicken in bite size pieces, raw or cooked is fine. Cover and reduce to a simmer and cook for an hour. Turn off heat, stir in the noodles and season with salt and pepper. Enjoy! This makes about 16-18 servings of soup, plus I had leftover broth/stock (about 8 cups).

For the accompaniment, I'm not a huge cracker person, so I thought I would make a sandwich, but I didn't have any bread so I made a quesadilla instead. It's delicious and very easy to make.

Turkey Mushroom Quesadilla:
1 whole wheat wrap
3 slices of deli turkey
1/4 cup mushrooms raw
1 tsp Worchestershire sauce
1/4 cup of reduced fat shredded mozzarella

On one half of the wrap, put turkey and mushrooms, sprinkle with the Worcestershire sauce. Top with cheese and fold the wrap over in half. Heat a pan or griddle and spray with non-stick. Cook for 2-3 minutes on each side until the wrap is golden brown and the cheese is melted. Cut in half to serve.

Happy Eating.