Little Black Dress Soup?

I joined a book club over a year ago to get myself out there and meeting new people. One of the books we read as a club was Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen.  Which was a great book, by the way. It was funny and very true. I actually did find it hard to read at some points because the whole thing is about divorce.  “Men of sense, whatever you may choose to say, do not want silly wives.”   Anyway... we always get together to discuss the book we read, so we had an Amish night. I made this soup and it turned out yummy. This was pre-capture-everything-you-eat-on-your-phone-days, so I apologize for the no photo.

Amish Chicken Soup Recipe

Ingredients:
1.5 lb. chicken (I use boneless)
1 qt. water
1 tsp. salt (or more to taste)
1  c. chicken stock (or a can of broth)
1 c. celery, chopped
1 c. carrots, chopped
1 tart apple, chopped
1 c. onions, chopped
Dash pepper
2 c. egg noodles
dashes of celery seed, poultry seasoning, and sage


Directions:
Boil chicken in water until tender. Add everything else except noodles and cook until veggies and fruit are tender. Toss in the noodles and cook 8-10 minutes.

P.S. Ode to book clubs! I have read so many different books that I normally would never read or even know about. I am missing it this spring and am looking forward to reading books for the fun of it in the summer.

Wilted Chard Salad

My dad grows a garden. Always has. It was nice as a kid because not only did we learn the meaning of prison labor, but we literally got to enjoy the fruits of our labor. I think I like vegetables now because I had a vested interest in them growing  up. Except lima beans. Hate them and always will.

Chard is sort of like spinach. I love it. I love all greens. I usually make a wilted spinach salad that involves feta cheese, but thought I would change it up a bit.

The stuff in the background is Orange Chicken, which I will provide that recipe at a later time.

For the chard, this is what I did.

Wilted Chard Salad

a bunch of chard, de-stemmed and sliced into manageable pieces (uncooked fills out a mixing bowl)
this stuff really cooks down a lot, so don't be fooled when you have a huge pile of it.
juice from 1/2 lemon
3-4 cloves of garlic minced
6 strips bacon (or can do bacon fat with no bacon)
salt and pepper to taste
green onions chopped

 

In a large skillet, fry to bacon. Pull out the bacon and leave the grease. toss in the minced garlic and mix around until golden brown. Break up the bacon pieces.

Put in the chard and cook down, about 5 minutes.
Mix in the bacon, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Toss in the green onions and mix around for another minute or so.

Makes about 3 servings.

Spoiler Alert: pretty much all future recipes will have vague amounts of ingredients. mostly because I toss in handfuls and pinches of stuff. I try hard to remember as I go, but I don't always remember what I did. I will use words like toss, slap, and pinch when referring to mixing in food.

Do, or do not. There is no 'try'.

Eat Pray Love

Well, I decided to start this blog because everyone is always asking me about my food pictures. I never used to like to cook, in fact, I hated cooking a few years ago. Growing up, my mom stuck to the basics because I am sure we whined a lot about trying new foods. So Hamburger Helper and Mac n Cheese were our friends. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I love Mac n Cheese to this day.
After moving out of the house, I ruined Rice a Roni, twice. So I decided that cooking was not for me. Besides, at the time, I had my own private chef who was great, inventive, and loved to cook. I gradually tried again, and discovered I could make awesome tuna salad and that I inherited my dad's ability to make great omelets.

I actually love to eat. I love eating out. I love trying new foods. I love trying new restaurants. I love eating at local places whenever I travel. In fact, I ate my way through my New York trip. Well, who hasn't done that. It was on my trip to PEI all by myself that I really began to discover  that I enjoyed new things. (For those of you who don't know PEI, read Anne of Green Gables.)

Learn a book, Seth!

I won't be posting regularly by any means. I am a grad student so it isn't like I can cook every day. So just get over it!  :)

And sorry if you don't get my literary, movie, TV, or random SNL references that I might scatter about. Plus, I will probably scatter random nature photos. I mean, why not?

I will be king. Stick with me and you'll never go hungry again!