Our Dirty Little Secret

There's a danger in learning to cook.  It can breed picky children.  There once was a day when I could crack open a can of soup, nuke it and call it dinner.  Alas, the last time I tried that the response I got was "I don't like this.  I like your soup better."  The ultimate compliment.  And yet, there are those Wednesday nights when you just don't have several hours to roast a chicken, make stock and serve up a steaming dish of homemade soup.  But we have a secret.

Here's what we had for dinner Wednesday night:

Total cooking time: 30 minutes from start to serving.

Our secret?

Rotisserie chicken and stock-in-a-box. 

Here's how we did it:

Saute 1 chopped onion in olive oil until it softens, about 6 minutes, stirring occasionally

Add to the onions:
2-3 carrots, peeled and chopped

2-3 ribs of celery, washed and chopped

12 oz of button mushrooms, cleaned and chopped into quarters. 

Continue to cook another 5 minutes.

Add 1 box of stock and bring to a boil.  Add a couple of handfuls of noodles (your choice) and cook in the soup according to the time on the pasta box.

While the soup is boiling, take the meat off the chicken bones (remove skin too) and chop into chunks.

Near the end of the noodle cooking time, add chicken to soup.  Add salt and pepper to taste; a dash of vinegar also helps liven up the soup.  You can stir in several cups of fresh spinach leaves at the last minute; they wilt instantly.

Not as good as homemade, but good enough for a week night.  That's our secret.



Chicken Noodle Soup

The weather suddenly got a little cooler here, and it feels like almost-fall.  We had one of those difficult-to-schedule-dinner evenings last night.  Our family class was at 7:00 p.m., leaving a window beteween 5:30 and 6:30 to cook, digest and change for class.  Soup seemed like a good choice.  Not too heavy, and easy to make.

Roast chicken and chicken noodle soup is one of our standard two-day menus, and it worked out well this week.

We roasted the chicken on Wednesday night, when we didn't have any place to go, and all the homework, reading, chores were done by the time the chicken was done.  After I pulled the leftover meat off the bones, I tossed the bones in a pot, covered with water, and let it simmer until I went to bed.

  

On Thursday, making the soup was a snap.  Here's all the cooking it required:

Remember that little bag of frozen onions?  There they are - pre-chopped and thrown in the pot.  We peeled and chopped some carrots and celery, tossed them with some olive oil for a few minutes while water boiled for noodles.

Good kid-chef tasks:  peeling carrots, washing and chopping celery, cutting the chicken pieces up with kitchen scissors and stirring.

I added the broth and the left-over chicken, and by the time the noodles boiled, the soup was warm. 

Mix and serve.

If I'm lucky, there's a little bit left over for my lunch the next day: