At any rate, as personal issues go, this one was not particularly serious. At worst, it was annoying and sometimes led to aborted dinners, when everyone ate macaroni and cheese instead.
But I managed to get past it without professional help.
A new cookbook and advice from friends made it possible for me to build up a small but reliable repertoire of soup successes: tortilla, split pea, beef with barley, matzo ball.
After a few years of failure, I was back in business.
•
Inevitably, I have grown cocky.
A few weeks ago, I assembled the ingredients for chicken soup, simmering half a chicken in broth and tossing in carrots, parsnip, onions, fresh dill and a diced rutabaga. After an hour or so, I removed the chicken from the bone, threw half of it back in the pot and added a sweet potato for flavor and! thickening.
Later that day, we sat down to steaming, delicious bowls of soup, so packed with flavor that, except for a little bread, the meal needed no other accompaniment.
My husband had two helpings. I had one and a half. My daughter ate one. My son might have finished the pot but he was off at college, busily ignoring the meal plan we had paid for in favor of late-night chicken wings and pizza delivered to the dorm.
Even the rest of the chicken that had steeped in the original broth was so good that it quickly disappeared from its plastic container in the refrigerator.
Clearly, I had emerged from the dark tunnel of bad soup into the bright light of culinary expertise.
And so, last week, I was back at it.
Once again, I simmered half a chicken in broth, tossing in carrots, parsnip, onions, dill and a diced rutabaga. After an hour or so, I removed the chicken from the bone, threw half of it back in the pot and added a sweet p! otato for flavor and thickening. It was d? vu.
That ev! ening, m y husband arrived home from work, lifted the lid and gazed into the pot.
"What happened?" he asked.
"What are you talking about? I made chicken soup again."
"Look at it."
Together, we peered in. A thin watery mess stared back. A sludge of chicken and vegetable bits coated the bottom of the pot. I dipped a spoon in for a taste.
"You want to try it?" I asked my husband.
"Nah. I don't think I'm in the mood for soup tonight."
"I think we have some macaroni," I said.
•
Certain that this debacle was a mere blip in my soup-making career, I tried again last Sunday with another tried and true recipe.
I had planned ahead, laying in a good supply of carrots and potatoes and picking up the split peas on the way home from a Friday meeting. Bright and early on Sunday morning, I rinsed and scraped, diced and measured. As soon as the pot was bubbling on the stove, I left my husband with instructions to skim the ! foam from the top every so often and went off to run some errands.
I checked the soup about noon, right after I returned home.
A solid green block of split peas gazed back at me from the pot.
"Where's the soup part?" my husband asked.
"I'm not sure," I answered. I stuck a large spoon into the mixture and it stood up straight, a flag planted in green concrete. "I guess I didn't add enough broth."
That night, I scraped a few scoops of the split pea concentrate into a smaller pot, added a generous helping of chicken broth and stirred until it made a slow transition from solid to liquid.
My daughter wouldn't come near it, but my husband and I each ate a bowlful with homemade biscuits and pronounced it a success.
After dinner, I divided the rest of the solid soup into four large freezer bags, rolled them into green cylinders and stored them behind the ice cream and the frozen chicken breasts.
"You know, you may be o! n to something here," my husband said as we cleaned up.
"Homemade canned soup."
Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
Before you buy anything aboutline look at joe cotrabouteo's site about residual income and his weblog about Home Based Business News
Source: http://www.telegram.com/article/20071019/COLUMN13/710190516/1102
home based business idea, home based! small business
No comments:
Post a Comment