07 January 2016

Chicken soup and hot tea

Today is day two of hubby doing the hot tea and chicken soup "diet" plan.  The sinus crud hit him pretty hard yesterday morning, and he actually requested the chicken soup.  He had "meh"ed the idea the evening before, as the only time chicken soup sounds good to him  is when he's sick.  So yesterday morning I opened up a pint jar of chicken stock, popped it into a little pot with carrots, garlic, crushed red pepper, and spaetzle from the grocery, and dried Swiss chard and kale for his breakfast.  I figured he'd nibble on that all day ... instead he had that pot done before brunch time and was hungry for corned beef hash and omelette.  After brunch, I made him another pot using a pint of chicken meat from last January that had plenty of "juice" for broth, and a can of store-bought vegetable broth.  Since the chicken was far more chunky, I omitted the noodles.

Hubby says even though he doesn't care for chicken soup unless he's sick, when he is sick the chicken soup I make is the absolute best.  It's even better using birds we raised up ourselves, and canned up here.  The other day, while the man was unloading the lumber delivery, he chatted about chickens since we had a group out in the enclosure.  I found myself once again grasping for a way to describe the flavor of an older chicken, as compared to the little 5 or 8 week old fatty babies at the grocery.  While I still can't really say what it tastes like (other than CHICKEN!  LOL) I have made the comparison to the difference in flavor between veal and beef.  People seem to be able to wrap their minds around that analogy, although that still doesn't tell them what the wonderful flavor of an older bird is.

Hubby expressed a concern this morning about using up the chicken stock in the pantry, but I assured him we are not at that crucial of a level just yet.  If we do run too low for comfort, then I'll just harvest the October hatch cockerels earlier than planned.

No comments: