Simple Chicken & Vegetable Soup

With April just around the corner and the first cookouts of the season in the books, I didn't expect to post a soup recipe, of all things, this week, but here we go. I don't even eat soup very often, let alone make it, but we had a bunch of vegetables around, and the mercury has dipped low this week. With that in mind I bring you the very basics of a simple chicken and vegetable soup. I think it turned out pretty well.

You need 3 basic things: chicken, vegetables, and broth. You'll probably also want tomato paste, spices, and maybe a fat like oil or butter. You put everything in a large pot (or a dutch oven or slow cooker) and simmer for a couple hours. Today I decided just to use what I had on hand, and not to use any added fat. Use a basic ratio of 3 Cups broth, 3 Cups chopped vegetables, 3 Tablespoons tomato paste, and 3 boneless chicken thighs.

Ingredients: 

• For chicken, although I prefer thighs, today I had breasts available, so I used 2 medium chicken breasts, cut small. 
• For veggies, I used 1 banana pepper, half an onion, half of a carrot, 3 garlic cloves, half of a tomato, a handful of green beans, half a zucchini, and I wish I had a can of corn to dump in too. 
• 3 T. tomato paste and an extra cup of broth will help
• oregano, thyme, cilantro, and parsley

Directions:

1. I brought 3 cups of broth to a boil in my Dutch oven, stirred in 3 T. of tomato paste while the broth boiled, then dumped in the chicken and all the veggies (and spices) and put the heat on low. 
2. I cooked it for maybe 3 hours, stirring occasionally. 
3. I shook in a tablespoon or two of shredded Parmesan cheese about an hour before I stopped cooking too, which gave it a great cheesy smell and a bit of creaminess. 

Chopped veggies...

...plus chicken...

...together in broth, makes soup!

Tip: marinate chicken in soy sauce ahead of time, always.

Joe's Amazing Chicken -- First Cook Outs of the Season

Yeah Buddy! Cookouts have returned to Heady Place! (Oh, by the way, some people refer to my house as Heady Place.) Temperatures topped out around 50 degrees a few times last week so I fired up the ol' grill.

The first cookout of the year featured Joe's Amazing Chicken (of course) and vegetable skewers: one of red pepper, one of zucchini. For the chicken, I used giant boneless breasts, marinated overnight in soy sauce and painted four times per side with Joe's Amazing Sauce while slow cooking for about 45 minutes. I sliced the zuke in wheels, sprinkled with coarse sea salt, and lined 'em all up on a skewer. I cut the red pepper in large chunks and skewered them, cooking unseasoned. Red pepper grills so well without seasoning, and the zuke really just needed a light salting. The grill brings out the natural sweetness of the vegetables. 

Joe's Amazing Chicken

This version of Joe's Amazing Sauce included roughly equal portions of: sriracha, teriyaki sauce, corn syrup, and olive oil. The key to Joe's Amazing Sauce lies in the four categories that these ingredients represent: spicy, salty, sweet, and stretch. You want a spicy ingredient (e.g., sriracha or hot sauce), a salty ingredient (e.g., teriyaki or soy sauce), a sweet one (e.g., corn syrup, brown sugar, stevia), and something to stretch the sauce and give you enough to coat the meat several times (such as olive oil, lemon juice, wine or beer). Heat one side the grill to high and the other to low, keeping the meat on the low side. Cook slowly, turning and coating with sauce often. Each layer of the sauce will cook into the chicken, or even start to glaze depending on your choice of sweetener. This re-coating and glazing makes the chicken ... amazing. As you continue to cook and add more sauce, try to drip or spread the sauce down into any crevices the meat might have. Depending on your meat you can find lots of little places to cook the sauce into. For example, bone-in thighs with the skin on make a great choice for grilling with this technique. Peal up the skin and spread the sauce underneath. Repeat every time you turn it, and you will have ... well ... Amazing Chicken. Finish it up over high heat to give you a nice set of grill marks across the meat.

The following day I made a jerk seasoning dry rub for cookout numero dos. You can make a really easy, delicious jerk seasoning with: ground cloves, salt, sugar, black pepper, cumin, and a little chili powder or hot red pepper flakes. Do not skimp on the sugar -- try brown sugar or stevia and little cinnamon too. The salt, sugar, and cloves make up the bulk of the seasoning. First rinse and pat the chicken dry. Then cover the chicken in the seasoning and press it gently into the meat. Turn and repeat a few times -- you want to coat the chicken completely. Grill the chicken as described above, or over a higher flame if desired.

Of course, as the season change comes along, so does my cold. It seems like every year both the Fall and Spring season change knock me out with a major cold. Thanks. Thanks a lot.