foodessa

CHICKEN TOMATO...
potage soup

Unbeatably tasty comfort found in this flavourful warmth in a bowl.

Usually Friday or Sunday suppers
are pretty much Soup and Cheese nights.

Friday's soup comes from the leftover Sunday soup ;o)
You see where I am going with this.
If you are wondering...
yes, I freeze portions of my soup as soon as its possibly ready to be stored away.
Keeping most of its freshness is definitely key to planning my 'Multi meals' ahead of time. It's great to have last minute preparations on hand.
If we've had a filling lunch which dragged on to a later time...
supper will need to be a little gentler on our system.

What better way than a nice warm vegetable ' minestrone ' soup or...
just plain, tasty dependable chicken soup.

Better yet, leave the regular, tasty chicken soup to when wanting to sooth your cold 'malaise' and kick it up a notch with tomato.

My favourite ingredient to raise flavours as well as adding a healthier component...is something called the lycopene factor. ...which packs a powerful antioxidant punch. Yes, this strange sounding word is primarily found in cooked tomato amongst a few other fruits like: watermelon, guava and pink grapefruit. Every chance I get...if cooked tomato lends itself well to the recipe...I certainly will add it.

Now, here's a recipe that I consider a 'Multi-Mealer'. These are the recipes worth my time and efforts more so than what I consider a 'one-timer meal'. If this chicken soup flops...chances are, the rest of my other meals will suffer the consequences ;0(

Not only do I get my Sunday soup...I'll later have a few more meals such as: soup for another day, chicken left over for a salad, tacos or pita pockets, maybe a pasta toss...yummy lunch sandwiches etc...

Let's not forget...
a great soup starts with well chosen ingredients.

The basics in this case is a good quality chicken, tomatoes and selective vegetables.

What's great about a soup such as this one?

It is the fact that it is so versatile.

Open your fridge veggie drawer...

and see what you can bless the chicken with today.

Therefore, here is my version of what a...

great Tomato Chicken Soup should taste like.

CHICKEN TOMATO
Potage Soup
serves 6-8 persons

Click HERE for PRINT version of RECIPE

INGREDIENTS:

(American /Metric measures)

Soup base:
. 1 whole chicken (about 3 lb./ 1.5 kg)
. 2 tsps. (10ml) sea salt,
. 2 tsps. (10ml) granulated garlic powder
. 10 medium sun-dried tomatoes
. 2 Laurier leaves
. 4 cups (1 Litre) canned Italian tomatoes, purée

...Vegetable add-ins* (about 4 cups worth):
. 1 medium, sweet onion
. 2 medium carrots
. 2 medium celery stalks
. 1/4 tsp. (1ml) each dried herbs: basil, oregano, rosemary, sage, tarragon

* Broccoli, cabbage, fennel, zucchini, can also replace the list of veggies mentioned above.

PREPARATION:

Prep and cooking total time: about 2 hrs.

1. Clean and liberate the chicken from most of its fatty skin. Leave only some on the wings and excess that doesn't come off easily.
2. Place the chicken into an xLarge pot...BREAST up. Cover with enough water to barely skim the surface of the chicken.
3. Place pot covered with its lid on HIGH heat. Wait about 10 minutes or so before a boiling action begins. As the whitish foam appears, grab a pierced ladle and take most of the foam off the surface.

4. Roll over the chicken to the BREAST down position. Remove about 3 cups (750ml) of water.

5. Add the puréed tomatoes, salt, garlic powder, Laurier leaves and sun-dried tomatoes. Cover the pot with lid ajar (watching it closely) to bring the soup to a re-boil point.

6. Bring the heat down to MEDIUM and leave it simmer for the next 40 minutes.
7. Roll over the chicken again to BREAST up. Now, add the vegetables and dried herbs. Lastly, lower the heat to one notch above LOW and continue cooking for another 40 minutes by keeping the cover tight onto the pot.

...Afterwards:
8. Gently remove the chicken and place it into a bowl to be covered. Use an immersion blender to puree the vegetables.
9. Pull apart the chicken and place back the pieces into the soup.
. Serve warm and enjoy.

Warm comfort and flavourful wishes,

Foodessa

Comments ... ??? ... or suggestions ... write me :o)

Claudia at: foodessa [at] gmail [dot] com

Go HERE for more SAVOURY creations.

Please take note on how I bake and cook...

Here’s a 101 of sorts to make sure that there are no disappointments when trying my creations.

Also...just so you know...feel free to increase the salt and sweet factor since I'm not high on either of them ;o)

. Use DRY cup measurements for...you guessed it...all DRY ingredients.

Anything DRY gets measured by spooning the overfilled ingredient (never shake the cup) and then level off with a flat edged tool. Exception...Brown sugar should be packed in and leveled.

. Use LIQUID cup measurements for...all LIQUIDS that cannot be leveled like for example butter, yogurt...etc. Measure the liquids at eye level to avoid overdoing what the recipe truly needs.

. OVENS are unfortunately not created equal. Mine is so old that it has reached many degrees off it's norm. It's really worth investing a few dollars to test yours with an appropriate oven thermometer. You'd be surprised how many ovens I've heard about not being where they should have been. Before you lose any more ingredients and much time preparing a new recipe...run to the store...you'll thank me later.

The following ARTICLES and RECIPES...may ALSO be of INTEREST:
. Recipe: SOUP Sunday MINESTRONE grain vegetable soup recipe
. Recipe: Best sweet and sour CHICKEN roast
. Recipe: Simple Stupid Salt CHICKEN roast
. Food 101: CHICKEN 101 - Let's LEARN more ABOUT what we EAT

Origins of the PECAN PIE

...If you WANT my modified recipe RIGHT NOW...click here:

Ahh...the wonderfully decadent Pecan Pie.
Over many decades, recipes have been baked from the classic books of:
the Joy of Cooking,
Fannie Farmer Cookbook,
and the Canadian Cuisine cookbook...

just to mention a few...and far from an exhaustive list.

Of course, as far as I was concerned my Mommy made the best...
Pecan Pie ever until I started baking my own concoctions...sorry Mom.

Usually every Autumn towards the Winter months...
I begin sorting through my pile of recipe notes and bookshelf.
Excitedly, I get up and at it once more to start baking up my comfort sweets.

So here's more on one of my favourite DESSERTS...
which has been cherished by most North Americans.

I am not going to tell you that I have re-invented this classic.

However, I am going to share with you my transformed version.

To start with...it has a base crust made from Graham cookie crumbs.
Why not use the good'ole pastry pie shell?
Well, in truth, I still have not mastered the
non-vegetable shortening (trans fats be gone!) version of a flaky pie crust.
I am still frustratingly experimenting.
As soon as I find that magical formula...I promise to share it with you.
For now, I very much enjoy my organic cookies.
A ' Pate Brisée ' crust also lends itself very well.

Another interesting aspect was to balance out alternative
sweet ingredients in order to eliminate at least the corn syrup.

If I could help it...for obvious reasons...I would avoid the Queen of high fructose.
I guess I cannot avoid voicing my opinion on this one.
Well, until a palatable 'magic sugar alternative' comes along...
I'll be stuck using it once in a while for certain recipes.
Ultimately, we all have personal choices to make.

I For the pecan pie, I finally managed to get the flavours and textures to...
cooperate and resulted into one very wonderful dessert.

Pecan Pie with GRAHAM Crust RECIPE...click here:

Here is sharing what I found out

about our North American Classic.

. Natives from New Orleans, U.S.A. originally introduced the Pecan nut to the French settlers. The French then used this flavourful nut to create the wonderfully rich Pecan Pie.

. It seems that there hasn't been a book published recipe for this pie anytime before the 1940s.

. What is still debatable is who really made the first Pecan pie? Was it the French...the Southern Americans or was it purely commercially fueled by the 'KARO' corn syrup brand??? We may never get a clear answer on this one. What is clear...is that it has become a North American dessert 'Classic'.

Here is a more complete excerpt from the very talented

informed Librarian who put together www.FoodTimeline.org

Food historians ...generally agree pecan pie is a twentieth century invention inspired by traditional sugar pies and sweet nut confections. It is a favorite of the American south, as are pralines and other pecan flavored foods.

"As a good daughter of the South practically weaned on pecan pie, I had always assumed that it dated back to Colonial days. Apparently not. Still, I find it difficult to believe that some good plantation cook didn't stir pecans into her syrup pie or brown sugar pie. Alas, there are not records to prove it. In fact, I could if no cookbooks printing pecan pie recipes before the early twentieth century. And only in the 1940s did "Fannie" and "Joy" begin offering recipes for it. In Southern Food: At Home, on the Road, in History (1987)...John Egerton writes: "We have heard the claim that Louisianans were eating pecan candies before 1800, and with sugar and syrup produced from cane at that time, it is conceivable that they were eating pecan pies, too, but there are no recipes or other bits of evidence to prove it."...If ‘ Karo’ did not originate pecan pie, it certainly popularized the recipe as a rifle through twentieth-century cookbooks large and small quickly suggests. Nearly all pecan pie recipes call for Karo corn syrup.

The only clue to earlier origins for pecan pie that I've been able to unearth is this syrup pie recipe published in From North Carolina Kitchens, Favorite Recipes Old and New published in 1953 by the North Carolina Federation of Home Demonstration Clubs."

---American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century, Jean Anderson [Clarkson Potter:New York] 1997 (p. 384)

Other Printings - in Newspapers:

Late 19th century newspapers (mostly from Texas) offer pecan pie recipes.

Suggesting? The genesis might belong to German settlers recreating ‘ NussTorte ’ in the Lone Star state.
--- [March 24,1914] "Texas Pecan Pie"

Recipe: Cook together one cup of sweet milk, one cupful of sugar, three well beaten eggs, one tablespoonful of flour and one half cupful of finely chopped pecan meats. Line a pie tin with rich crust, fill with the mixture and bake until done. Whip the whites of two eggs with two tablespoonfuls of sugar until stiff, spread over the top of the pie and brown slightly in the oven, sprinkling a few chopped nuts over the top."

Again, as usual, I was very pleased to know

just enough to appreciate this dessert even more.

I think that should do it.

If you’ve had enough history for now ... let’s get baking.

Pecan Pie with GRAHAM Crust RECIPE...click here:

Flavourful and delicious wishes,

Foodessa

Comments or suggestions ... write me :o)

Claudia at: foodessa [at] gmail [dot] com