What's cooking

It’s been over a year since I had made my chicken noodle soup.  This week seemed like the best time to bring it back.  We had a stomach bug hit our house recently.  We were all just able to start eating again when I decided to make it.  I’m a big believer in chicken noodle soup being a cure all that ails you.  It reminds me of being a kid and my mom giving me flat sprite when I had a belly ache so now anytime I drink a sprite it sends me back to being a sick as a child.  Chicken noodle does the same and is like a mental band aid to what makes you feel ill.  The way I make is it simple by comparison to a real “homemade” soup.  I’m a cook that has to be able to cook fast.  While I have chicken breast defrosting I begin prepping my vegetables. I chop up a single onion which will cause me to cry but it’s one of my favorite vegetable to add with any cooked meal. Then I julienne cut a cup of carrots to put in the soup; more for the color than the taste.  The last veggie I add is celery.  I don’t eat it often but the smell and crispness as I chop it is almost refreshing.  I take the easy way out and add chicken broth to a huge pot.  Now my mom would do something crafty by boiling a whole chicken all day to make a broth.  This is too much for me.  I add a lot of broth which is a personal preference that I like soup to be soup and not thick like as sauce.  I bring it to a boil and toss in the vegetables and seasoning.  I dice up the defrosted chicken which is my least favorite part.  Cutting meat has never been my favorite maybe it’s the feeling of slimy things.  I let it all boil and simmer while the chicken and vegetables cook all together.  This all starts to give the house the best aroma of warmth.  If a smell could make you feel wrapped up in a comfy blanket next to a fire place that’s what my chicken noodles does for me.  To me the last step is the most important.  The one thing I have to steal from my mom’s way of cooking soup is to add not just any noodle but Reames egg noodles.  This means I’m in the home stretch and so close to a warm bowl in front of me.  After another twenty minute wait I can finally enjoy the comforting taste of my simple labor of love.    I can’t believe it had been so long since I treated myself to something so wholesome and good.  It almost made my illness worth the pain to enjoy something that made me feel so much better. 

reflection

I started this project with a mild sense of dread.  It reminded me to much of journaling which has never been my favorite.  At first it seemed easy to type for ten minutes.  The hard part I found out was coming up with topics to write about.  I felt like I was just babbling constantly.  I discovered that even though I was free writing by the third week my thoughts seemed clearer as I wrote.  I liked the ease of free writing as long as I was inspired by the topic.  Therein lies my dislike of the project. I had the hardest time finding topics so I just wrote about everything around me.  I don’t know if I’ve changed that much as a writer.  When I’m writing a first draft it does make me stop and free write all my thoughts then go back later to edit.  I wouldn’t say I’ve seen a significant change in my writing.  My average length went up to around 350-375 in ten minutes.  Again, that depended on the topic.  It truly was my greatest weakness through the whole project.  I think I did every topic suggestion that my classmates put on Black Board.  Now I can’t say it would make it any better but maybe at the beginning of the project everyone should post ten topic ideas.  It wouldn’t matter if some people duplicated topics there would be plenty of ideas for people like me who are topic challenged.  Over all it was a good experience with some challenges along the way.