A Well-Stocked Freezer

"One morning, as I went to the freezer door, I asked my wife,

'What should I take out for dinner?'

Without a moment's hesitation, she replied, 'Me.'"

-- Unknown

Frozen soup 5-22-14

"How to thaw a frozen turkey: 'Blow in its ear.'"

-- Johnny Carson

I didn't feel good yesterday.

Actually, I felt really shitty. The last thing I felt like doing was cooking, or eating.

On days like that, I'm super glad that there have been other days when I've felt better and had the energy and foresight to stock my freezer with lots of homemade soups and other good things.

So I thawed some delicious homemade chicken soup in the slow cooker so that it was all heated up and ready just in time for supper. Somewhere I found the energy to whip up some cornbread (yes, from scratch). Then I spent the rest of the afternoon in the recliner with heating pads on my sore tummy, watching the Indians beat the Tigers in 14 innings of some of the most exciting baseball of the season so far. 

In baseball terms, my freezer is kind of like my pinch hitter.

It steps up to the plate when the regular hitter is taken out of the lineup.

Luckily, the soup was a hit.

Alphabet Soup

"The easiest way to get from point A to point B 

is with a vehicle that runs on alphabet soup."

-- Jarod Kintz, Great Listener Seeks Mute Woman

Alphabet soup 3-23-14

"Ever wonder if illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup?"

-- John Mendoza

While their piping hot soup cooled, Leo and my husband excavated their bowls and spelled out words with the alphabet pasta.

So I decided to get in on the fun.

Wholesome, comforting, delicious homemade vegetable soup is one good thing.

Being able to say good things with homemade vegetable soup is an extra-tasty bonus.

And to think, I almost used barley instead.

Good thing I didn't.

Homemade Chicken Soup

"You can't eat this soup standing up, your knees buckle."

-- Jerry Seinfeld, Seinfeld, "The Soup Nazi"

Homemade chicken soup 1-19-14

"There's a sorrow and pain in everyone's life,

but every now and then there's a ray of light

that melts the loneliness in your heart and brings comfort

like hot soup and a soft bed."

-- Hubert Selby Jr., Requiem for a Dream

"Anyone who tells a lie has not pure heart,

and cannot make good soup."

-- Ludwig van Beethoven

When I was a kid, chicken soup came from a can. It was mostly mushy noodles and salty broth, with a couple of tiny bits of carrot and celery (I think) and maybe one grayish chunk of chickenish meat about the size and texture of a pencil eraser.

At our house, homemade soup happened once in a blue moon, usually made by my Dad, and was either bean (if there was a leftover ham bone from Easter) or turkey (if there was leftover turkey from Thanksgiving). His soup usually involved those foil-wrapped bouillon cubes, the first four ingredients of which are typically: salt, sugar, MSG and some kind of bad-for-you hydrogenated oil. Kind of takes the comfort out of comfort food, doesn't it?

My grandma, however, made delicious soup, with beef, and barley and colorful vegetables. She taught me how by letting me watch her do it. There was no written recipe, but her basic rules, I later learned, carried over to just about any soup I wanted to try:

1. Keep it simple. 
2. Start with good meat and homemade stock.
3. Let it cook long and slow so the flavors develop. 
4. Make extra and freeze it for those days when you don't have time to cook supper.

I make soup a lot. And I'm not too humble to admit that my soups are very delicious. I don't use recipes very often. Mostly I just wing it depending on what I have on hand. On a blustery day, a pot of soup bubbling away on the stove makes the whole house smell and feel warm and cozy. Add a loaf of crusty bread, a leafy green salad, and a bottle of wine, and, well, they don't call it comfort food for nothing.

"In January it's so nice

While slipping on the sliding ice

To sip hot chicken soup with rice

Sipping once, sipping twice

Sipping chicken soup with rice."

-- Carole King, "Chicken Soup With Rice"