Silly Chicken Soup with special guest star of Grains

I'm having a blast cooking my soup today because I decided to take pictures of it along the way.  It's much more fun, I should have done this long ago. I don't know why all of my pictures got turned upright! :(


Silly Chicken Soup with special guest stars of Grains.

Part 1, make your Basic Chicken Stock:

Making basic chicken stock: chicken carcasses, bay leaves, peppercorns, a few carrots, three onions, celery if you have some. Simmer overnight.

Next day: strain your stock. Above is stock that is ready. I don't skim my stock...I am a believer in animal fat being healthy for us.

The remains, just throw in the trash cooked bones are bad for dogs.

The dog with the stock. She looks guilty because she knows it smells good and she wants to eat it all. The bungee cord is my dog "insurance".

Part 2: Assemble ingredients, use what ever you have (recipe listed at the end)

I didn't have noodles, therefore I'm using my plethora of grains.

One of my favorite cooking methods is the "Ingredients in Google" game:  Don't know what to make for dinner? Need to use up what you have? I go to Google, type in my ingredients and pick a recipe out of the hundreds that pop up.  I usually have most of the other things that are needed to fill in the rest of the recipe I choose. 

Today I did this, but using chicken soup as my base idea.  I found someone who had made chicken and barley, but I can never pick just one grain so I'm using a medley.

Thanks to my friend, Steph, I'm giving Lard a try in my cooking life...goes with the animal fat being good for us theory...I have converted to mainly using bacon grease for most bases. So today in goes a scoop of lard...I'm sure olive oil or butter would do the trick as well.

Wow, onions cooked in lard, can you smell that?! (Don't worry kosher friends, I won't feed this to you.)

 Take a moment to watch the little one pour milk onto the table.

Add the carrots then spices...here I decided to add parsley, pepper corns, celery seed (since we don't have any celery), a bit of tarragon, a little pepper and salt. 

Then I rinsed and added 1/3 cup of both barley and wheat berries...

I should have added the chicken with the spices, but forgot to add it 'till I had put in a bit of broth...

Fill pot with yummy broth and let 'er simmer.  The kosher salt is a bit ironic...





Hubby comes home and brings groceries including celery...to late, haha.
Add soup to the larger pot, add 1/3 c quinoa and 1/3c millet...let 'er cook more...she tastes GOOD!

Add more broth to fill your pot, add more salt and pepper to taste.

Feed hungry children who have enjoyed the snow all day...then finish said blog and take the kids to church.

*After seeing this page has gotten the most hits out of any on my whole blog and I don't have a very good recipe written, I'll post one here. This is approximately what I did, but remember this recipe is flexible and it's all about using what's in your pantry. -Anna 8/18/2013*

Silly Chicken Soup with Grains Recipe: (yield appx 5 quarts)

1/2 c lard or butter or olive oil or coconut oil (these are Anna approved oils) 

~heat in heavy bottom pot~

2 onions, diced

2 or 3 carrots, chopped

2 or 3 stalks of celery, chopped

~put these veggies into your oil and cook for 5 or so minutes~

~Season these veggies while cooking with:

8 or so peppercorns

tarragon

celery seeds (if you don't have celery in your soup)

some fresh ground pepper

1/3 c barley

1/3 c wheat berries

~rinse these and add to the pan~

2 lbs shredded chicken 

~add to the pot~

3-4 quarts chicken stock

~add to the pot and let simmer 30 minutes~

1/3 c quinoa

1/3 c millet

~rinse these and add to the pot and let simmer 30 minutes~

salt (you will have to taste this based on how much salt is in your broth, don't be afraid of salt, especially if you're using sea salt, it will make or break this soup or any meal really)

And more broth (or water) as needed. Be sure your grains are cooked before serving. Add salt and more pepper if needed. Let this simmer all day or cook it up quickly. The wheat and barley take longer to cook so you could exclude these if you need a faster cooking time. Use what ever grains you have, just be sure you know how long they need to cook. 

If you soak your grains overnight the day before it will make your grains much more digestible and let your body access more of the nutrients in the grain. If you cook the chicken stock the night before, just soak the grains as well in another bowl. If you add a bit of yogurt to your soak water it breaks them down faster and further and makes them even more nutritious. (like a quick/mini ferment)

Here's the link to the pot that I own. I got it 20 years ago and still use it regularly. I had to get an 8 quart one too in order to accommodate for our growing family. 

This bad boy is 13 Quarts!!!!!!! Holy cow. I'm thinking this would look lovely next to his little brother. Drool. 



I didn't own this pot yet when I posted this blog...I got it in 2012. I LOVE it for a stock pot but it's actually a canner. It's stainless steel and has a nice thick bottom to help in not burning giant batches of chili. I use mine regularly.



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