Why Chicken Soup is going to taste great tonight....




Day before market, busy as usual on the farm. Ben's mom with be grading storage crops with me, then we are cleaning the cooler out to get ready for 'seeding'! Yup, we will germinate in that insulated room, which is much warmer this time of year. Ben's busy doing maintenance on the outter wall of one greenhouse; and I've also decided it's time to tackle cleaning out the middle greenhouse - sorting trays, sweeping up. Every once in a while I know I'll jump out of my skin, as a huge sheet of snow will slide off the glass roof - THIS is a nice sound! Ben's also decided to seed later this afternoon. Should be a great day, nice to see the sun. Nothing happens until all the animals are taken care of. This morn was weird, as our horse is extremely vocal in the morning. She was silent and I didn't notice her around outside as usual when I fed the cats. We soon discovered why! Ben said: "It's usually the child that leaves the gate open, this time it was me!" Ben brought her a big bail of straw for fresh bedding and left the gate wide open!!! Our horse got into the tack area of our barn where we keep all the saddles and her hay and she made a huge mess! She had been trapped in there all night, tore apart three bails of straw, ate the rest of her oats, and crapped it up nicely! My stepdaughter is VERY lucky her good saddle is in her bedroom, as Bug peed all over the stand where it usually is!! We just laughed, and I couldn't help but her hug her, as she's just soooo fuzzy this time of year! Anyhow, clean up took quite a while, the afternoon is going to be busy, so Chicken Soup is going to taste GREAT tonight!


Chicken Soup


For a nice stock, in a big pot boil 4lbs of chicken pieces (bone in, skin on) with 10 C. water for about 5-10 minutes. Skim off any foam. Then add a couple stocks of celery with leaves, one large onion chopped in big pieces, big carrot chopped in big pieces, some parsley, a couple bay leaves, couple cloves of garlic and 10 or so black whole peppercorns. Stir everything, bring to a boil and then let this stock simmer for 3 hours or so. Then remove the chicken, strain the rest to get some nice stock broth. Now, heat a bit of oil in a soup pot, add 1/2 cup chopped onion, 1/2 cup chopped carrot, 1/2 cup chopped celery. Cook till soft. Add stock, bring to a boil. (I then add perogie dough in tiny pieces! This is very good and kids love it!! You can throw in broken spaghetti pieces!) Then, you add your reserved chicken (that you should have de-boned and chopped into desired pieces!), more parsley and as much salt and pepper to your liking! This is great on a cold winter day! I've been known to also throw in some bok choy chopped with my chicken and before I eat my bowl of soup, I splash a good helping of hot pepper sauce in too! Ok, by the way, if you are whinning "But I don't HAVE 3 + hours to cook supper!!!" THEN do what I do: Cook the stock the evening before 'Chicken Soup' night!!! I let the stock cook during the evening while I sat at my computer and did seed exemption!! Next day it is simple prep for this wonderful family meal! Double or triple the stock and FREEZE it for another few FAST homemade soups!! No excuses, leave the microwave, oven ready crap at the store and EAT
WELL!!

Popular posts from this blog

TIME TO ORDER OUR ORGANIC PEROGIES & CABBAGE ROLLS!!

Image
Yep, long overdue, but I finally assembled my crew of fine ladies (and Ben!) and we are crafting our organic winter foods again!  These are handmade foods of the finest ingredients. PEROGIES! CABBAGE ROLLS!  Four kinds of perogies to choose from including a really, really good vegan one (that is actually cheaper to buy because it has no organic dairy or eggs!) The perogies are huge - twice the size of normal ones! Cabbage rolls are all vegan, (no meat ones sorry) and loaded with kale, onions, brown rice and garlic smothered in tomato sauce.  They. Are. Awesome. If Ben doesn't miss the beef - you won't either!  Processing multi-ingredient foods and getting them certified organic has intensified over the years, no doubt to the growing demand of organic foodstuffs.  It makes it a bit hard for someone who is a small-time processor like me, but I feel it to be necessary step.  Ingredient integrity is very important to us. All perogies and the cabbage rolls are CERTIFIED ORGA
Read more

September is Pepper month!

Image
Pepper, like tomatoes are doing well for us this season.  They thrive in this heat and we were fortunate to set up and run drip irrigation with all the pepper patches.  The plants are heavy with peppers and our goal was sweet red, reds and more reds! We have red shepherds, red bells and red pimentos.  All are so sweet when high red and yummy straight up, roasted, grilled, pan fried.... ah I love this time of year. Sweet Corn was almost a bust this year!  F-ing deer and raccoons made a hell-o of a mess back there. Very depressing....BUT the second patch was left alone.  huh.  Ben thinks they just moved on. So more yummy, sweet NO GMO, sprayed with absolutely nothing organic sweet corn at all markets for a while! And a quick selfie with baby Jonah and I checking out the wagon of beefsteaks which have also been amazing this season! We are still taking orders for Romas by the way! So keep making that sauce as the weather cools down! And for any of you that follow the farm fa
Read more

It's time to order your Certified Organic Roma Tomatoes!

Image
Because of this hot, dry weather our Organic   'Viva Italia' Roma tomato crop has no disease! We have been able to irrigate when needed during the cool evenings, that combined with these hot, Mexico-like days on this dusty, dry farm the tomatoes have flourished! It is definitely what I like to call a 'tomato year'!  We have enough this year that we can sell wholesale for all your Sauce Making Needs!! All wholesale cases are 25lbs for $25. (25lbs is a half bushel amount). These tomatoes are the thickest, meatiest, tastiest, organic sauce tomato around!  It's simple. All you have to do is email me your order. (You can also head to our website at www.sosnickiorganics.com and use our contact form to place your order.) Let me know how many cases you need, which market you want to pick up at and a phone number to either call and text you at as a reminder.    Feel free to visit me at market where I make the time to talk to all my customers and can share recipes and ca
Read more