Theme: Chicken Vegetable Soup

It's August in New York City. It's hot, and humid, and sticky, and miserable, and... 60 degrees??

Well, every few years, in the middle of our proverbial dog days of Summer, we get just a few days of Fall weather, just to  tease us, before the weather returns to the usual oven. It's a wonderful respite, and really helps for the rest of the summer, too, as the concrete and brick cools off and stops radiating heat at us. You can't count on it, it won't last, but... it is lovely...

Well, we had a few days like that last week. And I had a container of chicken stock in the freezer, and some cooked chicken,  and some odds and ends of both raw and cooked vegetables - and I thought a bowl of a light soup would be a nice addition to lunch.

I looked in the fridge, and assembled my ingredients. Half an onion, half a celery stalk, half a carrot (remember, I'm cooking for two. Sometimes a whole onion or carrot is just too much...) Chicken, and chicken stock. Leftover greens, frozen in cubes.

What? Well... with two of us, a whole bunch of kale or chard is usually too much for one meal, especially as I often serve other vegetables as well. So we freeze the leftovers. My favorite trick, actually, is to freeze them in muffin pans - that gives me little half cup muffins of greens... little manageable chunks. This time, the freezer had been full, though, and we really had some tiny bits,  so Rich (he cleans up, since I cook) put them away in little ice cube holders. (They were my grandmother's - they're useful for all sorts of odd little bits of things... but if you don't have them there are many small containers you can use.) I usually pop them out into a zippered freezer bag the next day, and assemble a bag of muffins and cubes of various cooked greens. They're useful when we carry a meal, they're my go to for  Anne Can't Cook nights, and they're a great size to toss into other dishes.

So, anyway... I got everything together, and put a pot over heat. The chicken fat (there wasn't much) had risen to the top of the stock. I used a spoon to scrape off some of it, and put it in the pan to saute the vegetables. You can scrape all of it off, if you want, and, if there had been a lot of it, I'd have discarded some, but a lot of the flavor is in that fat. It makes more sense to me to just use some of it, instead of adding oil. If I were using packaged stock, which is usually lower in fat, I'd just grease the pan with olive oil.

I chopped the onion, celery, and carrot (Aromatics,  remember?) and put them in the pot. Let them saute just a little, while I chopped the frozen greens. This is one feature I really like about the cubes and muffins rather than one thick chunk - I find them easy to chop more finely, which I want if I add them to soup or a sauce. Let's avoid long strings of kale dripping out of spoons, shall we? They get messy... Then I added the greens to the pot.

Anyhow, when the aromatics had softened a little I popped in the chunk of frozen stock. As it was thawing, I knew I would need more than a pint of broth, and I wanted it to have plenty of flavor, so I crumbled and threw in some dried shitake mushrooms. We're lucky enough to be able to shop in Japanese stores where they are inexpensive, we love mushrooms, and they are very useful for quickly adding some flavor to a broth or sauce. Soup base or seasonings would also be an option here (or just a larger container of stock, if you have one...) Since I was using mushrooms, and not a seasoned soup base, I also added a dash of salt.

While the frozen broth continued to melt, I chopped a piece of the cooked chicken. The soup wasn't going to be a whole meal, so I just put in a little - for flavor, as much as anything else. I added it, then, when the broth was mostly melted, added about a cup of water.

Then I just put on a lid, left it on medium heat until it all simmered about 5 to 10 minutes and all the vegetables were tender, and called it soup.

This kind of soup is a great way to fill out a meal. I use it as part of lunch, as I did here - but it is also a way to get a bit more vegetable, or meat, or... whatever... into a meal that is light on that food group. (I didn't add a grain or bean, this time - but that's easy...)  Or - there is *almost* but not *quite* enough of that casserole left for dinner... or "Of course you can come over!" Or, most often, probably, just that you want to Do Something with those bits and pieces without it feeling like leftovers.

Now, the point of this is to let you cook without a recipe - but I know that, for beginners, it can be easier to have a written out recipe. So I'm adding that, here - and I'm doubling it, instead of actually *calling for* those half pieces of vegetables... but, remember - that's what you can  use...


Recipe - Chicken Vegetable Soup

1 onion
1 carrot
1 rib celery
olive oil (opt.)
1 c cooked greens (any assortment - kale, chard, spinach, beet greens - whatever you have on hand)
1 qt. chicken stock or broth
4 dried shitake mushrooms (or 1 t soup base)
salt, to taste
6 oz cooked chicken

Chop onion, carrots and celery.

Grease the pan with either the fat from homemade stock, or olive oil. Saute the aromatics for a few minutes, until they start to soften.

Chop the greens finely, add them to the pot.

Add stock, and mushrooms or soup base (breaking the mushrooms up into small pieces.) Add another 2 cups of water.

Chop chicken into small chunks, and add to pot.

Let simmer about 10 minutes, until all vegetables are softened and flavor is blended.

Mustard salad dressing - Variation

There are several classic variations of the traditional oil and wine vinegar French dressing. One of the simplest is a similar dressing, with mustard added. The mustard helps the oil and vinegar emulsify, which can be helpful if you don't have a shaker bottle, and it adds a little bite. I like it with traditional chef's salads, or one with hard cooked eggs, or plain beans, while I prefer the herb dressing with feta cheese, or chicken. Just my own preferences - you may differ! And, in fact, I use whichever is on hand - but my choice of which to make can be driven by what I'm going to be eating in the next week.

I use cider vinegar for this. Normally, I use wine vinegar, and that certainly works, but I like this combination. I tend to look at traditional flavorways when I am improvising.  Mustard was commonly used in Northern European cooking, where apples were more common than grapes, and cider vinegar more common than wine vinegar, and the flavors go well together. I'm not consistent, though - I still use olive oil!

I pour the vinegar into a measuring cup. It's convenient to mix it right there in the cup - I'm measuring as I go, and only using one container. Then I mix in 1 teaspoon of prepared mustard. Here, I used a commercial grainy Dijon - but you can use whatever kind you like. Varying the mustard itself varies the taste of the dressing - a grainy horseradish blend will be more assertive than a smooth yellow mustard. Whatever you have in the refrigerator is presumably what you like, and any will do, here.

I love that there are so many kinds of mustard. It makes it easy to give variety to simple meals. The change of condiment makes a plain cheese sandwich different. When I first lived away from New York City, local supermarkets had lots of space, and very little variety - there would be a whole aisle with only two national brands of mustard. Perfectly good themselves, mind you - but I was used to a choice! The tiny store I shopped in while growing up had about three feet of shelving for mustard - and half a dozen brands with 10-15 flavors overall. All in small jars...    I understand, though, that now stores offer a greater assortment, as consumers demand more. I know that the stores I went to in New Jersey had started to carry the variety I had expected, shortly before I moved back to New York. And, if you normally only use one or two kinds, it might be fun to try something a little different.

Anyway... I mix the spoonful of mustard into the vinegar first, as it may dissolve more readily, then add oil. Pour it into the container. Again, if I'm using a container that I know holds 8 ounces, I mix slightly less than the full 2/3 of a cup in the measuring cup, and top it off in the bottle. If I'm keeping it in a jar or covered bowl, I'll mix it all in the cup.

And there you are. Again, a truly fresh dressing to put on your lovely fresh salad, made in just a few minutes. 

Oh - I store this at room temperature. The oil will solidify in the refrigerator, and there is nothing in it that needs to be kept cool for short term storage. It's rather nice (in a prettier bottle than this one) on the table. That's one advantage to the emulsification caused by the mustard. It will separate over time, but you can shake a bottle, or stir a spoon in a container, and it stays together long enough to serve yourself, while a regular oil and vinegar dressing will separate instantly, and can leave you pouring oil on your salad. 

Mustard Salad Dressing

1/3 c cider vinegar

1 tsp. prepared mustard

2/3 cup olive oil

Mix all ingredients, in order. 

Hot Spinach Salad

I've been waffling a bit on the direction I want this blog to take.

I have now found myself, however, both offering to provide recipes to my CSA, and helping encourage new cooks in a different venue. Now that I'm actually writing recipes, I'm going to start posting them.

Right now, the fresh vegetables have finally started coming into Greenmarket. For a month, I've been buying huge bags of spinach. I've sauteed most of it, but I thought this salad would make a nice change.


Hot Spinach Salad

1 bunch spinach
mushrooms, sliced
1T olive oil
1t butter
balsamic vinegar
scallions or green onions, chopped
hard cooked eggs (opt.) chopped


Cut off just the pink root tips of the spinach, freeing the leaves. Place the leaves in a large bowl of water, and gently swish them around. Lift the leaves gently out of the water. This leaves any sand down in the bottom of the bowl, not in your spinach! Let them dry in a colander or strainer. If you want, pat the leaves dry with a soft clean dish towel.

Heat the olive oil in a fry pan. When it is warm, add the butter. As soon as it is melted, add the mushrooms. Cook over a low heat until done to your taste.

Meanwhile, tear the spinach in bite sized pieces, and place in a serving bowl. Pour the hot mushrooms onto the spinach. Pour a splash of vinegar in the pan and swirl it around to get all the flavor, and pour it over the salad. Toss. Garnish with scallions and eggs, if desired, and serve at once. The hot oil will lightly cook the spinach where it touches.

For simpler service, just use the mushrooms uncooked, and make a salad dressing of the oil and vinegar (omitting the butter.)