Jinx makes good soup

[Flint]

Yeah, that's what pasta rollers are for! Duh.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by monster

you put stuff on hold in one of the bowls you will serve the soup in.... :p

Just stick to frozen peas and omlettes and maybe let Beest handle the soup making...

[Flint]

jinx just served you up a steaming hot bowl of getting served.

[monster]

she did... but I ordered STFU. You just can't get the staff these days....

[lumberjim]

SO.

last night, I ran out and got some beef and beef broth because jinx wanted to make soup. ....mind..I was already in my PJs and had to change back into real clothes to go do this......but I deemed it a worthy investment.

Today....I was busy through lunchtime, and didnt eat until 3PM. so, I didn't eat any dinner because I wasn't hungry......but by the time I got home at 10:40, I was freaing HONGRIE. that's right. with an O.

I just had 2 big bowls of jinx's beef barley soup/stew.......

I am pleased.

[skysidhe]

I love the Food Network channel. It's one of of the two or three I watch.

mmm soup

The beef and barley is one I have never made.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I watch Food Network as often as I dare -- waistline concerns, y'know. It's often a good idea to watch that one over a plateful, to stay fortified. Sometimes I just surf into it to lust after Rachel Ray for half an hour. She's shaped like a real girl and makes yummies. Yum-Os if you must.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I watch Fox Network as often as I dare . . .

Fixed that for ya - sorry I couldn't resist.

[Tulip]

Originally Posted by jinx

It was just basic chicken noodle - I thought Ippy was getting sick but she was just really tired.

1. Get some mirepoix sweating in a bit of olive oil in your big soup pot.
2. Get some chicken breasts braising in some chicken stock, add a lot of salt and even more black pepper. You could do some rosemary, thyme etc. but I didn't because the girl likes it simple.
3. Get some noodles cooking then rinse them in cold. I like broad no-yolk egg noodles.
4. Combine, add more stock, simmer a bit or whatever...

For a person who doesn't know how to cook, this ain't enough direction. However, I will try. Hopefully it'll turn out good. This should be healthier than canned chicken soup.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by classicman

Fixed that for ya - sorry I couldn't resist.

But that takes no daring at all! Heck, I even get a little exercise when I'm sharing their indignation. It's about as good as a short session with one of those wiggle-apparatuses for exercising various bits of you in your apartment.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Tulip

For a person who doesn't know how to cook, this ain't enough direction. However, I will try. Hopefully it'll turn out good. This should be healthier than canned chicken soup.

Yeah, better flavor of the veggies and meats, less (or improved portion control) of the salt.

Soup is the dish for the don't-know-how set. It's very forgiving so long as it remains liquid.

How to get up to your elbows in chicken soup the first time:

Chicken stock: store up used chicken bones in the freezer until you can fill up a tall pot (a stockpot, so used because not too much water evaporates from its top, and besides, they have lids too) most of the way with bones and scraps. Optional salt, some carrots onions and celery if you've got any or all of, some black pepper and a bay leaf or two, bring to a boil, simmer maybe an hour, cool rapidly either by straining through a sieve or colander into mixing bowls or something, transfer into freezable containers (leave room at the top for frozen stock to expand into) and freeze or fridge right off. Chicken stock makes up pretty fast compared to brown or beef stock, and should be cooled off fast.

Stock is made mainly with simmering bones with scraps, etcetera; broth is made by simmering the meat, and you shouldn't simmer the meat too long or all its flavor will be gone into the broth and the meat that's left goes totally boring.

Use stock just about like water to make soup with. You can simmer it down to make it concentrated, with its flavors intensifying.

That mirepoix is the same mix of onions, carrots, and celery -- veggies to flavor the soup and add nutrients, particularly minerals and vitamin A. That's right, you use it both in making the stock, and again for making the soup. Use chicken with no gristly bits in it, like diced breast meat. (Chicken with gristly bits makes for good stock material. Then shred the remaining meat for inclusion in chicken salad, with more breast meat.)

To braise meat of any kind: put it in a frying pan with a little splash of stock so the meat isn't frying dry, and cook slowly on a low flame. A simmer is enough, a vigorous boil is too hot, turn it down. I usually cover the frying pan with a lid that fits. Add stock if it all steams away. The meat comes out tender and moist.

Noodles: Jinx is telling you to boil the noodles up in preparation, and cool them swiftly after cooking by rinsing them in a strainer under cold water for a moment. When your soup is pretty much cooked, in go the noodles. The quick cooling is to keep them with a strong noodleness and not go mushy and lose flavor (they don't have so much by themselves) from overcooking, nor mess with the soup's fluid volume as they would if you poured them in dry, as they would then suck up a lot of the water.

Hooray, good soup. Try squirting a wedge or two of lime into it on serving. Tropically tasty and vitamin C too.

Buy cookbooks or sift through the Internet for recipes aimed at the For-Dummies set. Oriental-type cookbooks profusely illustrated with how-to photographs are excellent teachers for somebody with no instructor -- for Oriental food anyway.