Tag: cooking

This is Not A Recipe: Chicken Noodle Soup

Post author By Rebecca Cuneo Keenan
Post date March 6, 2013
6 Comments on This is Not A Recipe: Chicken Noodle Soup

This is not a recipe. I don’t usually cook from recipes and neither should you.

What I mean is that when you’re just trying to feed your family, you want to be able to think about what you have on hand, what you’d like to eat and then go ahead and make something. It’s not rocket science. We don’t need measurement. (Recipes are so totally useful for special meals, learning to make something new and inspiration, of course.)

I’ve been hankering for a hearty chicken noodle soup for a while. Here’s what I did:

Rotisserie chicken is on special Tuesday nights at Metro so I bought two, one for dinner and one to make into soup. Cook your own chicken or chicken parts if you want. It doesn’t matter.

I sliced up some celery and carrots and cooked them over low heat in some butter in the bottom of a pot. You probably have these on hand, but if you find out last minute that you ran out of carrots, it will be all right.

Add salt and a lot of pepper because I like my chicken noodle soup peppery. I tossed in a couple generous pinches of a seasoning mix that I made up but I can’t remember exactly what’s in there. It’s probably dried oregano, basil, parsley, garlic powder and onion powder. But whatever you like.

Roughly chop up your cooked chicken meat and toss it in. Stir to cover with all the good flavours.

Open a couple boxes of chicken stock. I used the no salt added stuff, but again, whatever you have. If you make your own then I’m not quite sure why you’re even reading this. You clearly know how to make soup. If you have an 18 month old around to help with this step, your chicken will have had just the right amount of time in the pot before the stock gets thrown in.

Bring to a boil and turn the temperature down to simmer for, I don’t know, ten minutes if you can spare it. It’s totally fine to just add the noodles right away if you can’t.

Egg noodles really are the best for chicken noodle soup, but any kind of pasta, rice or grain works. Drop in a few handfuls and cook until tender.

I decided to thrown in some frozen peas at the end too, for sparkle. Yes, I think peas add sparkle. What’s it to you?

More salt and pepper to taste. Stir. Serve. Ermagerd.

Irene asked if we were having rainbow soup, so of course I said yes. If she ever asks, I’d appreciate if you’d play along.

Tags chicken noodle soup, cooking, not a recipe, rainbow soup

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Cooking with Kids Sucks

I didn’t want to have to be the one to tell you this, but the parenting advice books and websites all lie. To be fair, they tend to run the spectrum from vague generalities to downright lies. Traditionally, parents are supposed to find this out for themselves the hard way. You are supposed to find yourself sprawled out on the floor outside your baby’s bedroom at 3:30am, tears streaked down your face, the sound of a disconsolate infant wailing in the background, while you whip that mother effing sleep training book against the far wall. That’s the way it’s done.

Lucky you for you, though, I am here to help. I can’t do anything about the baby sleep issue, silly; you just have to figure that one out for yourself. But I can tell you that all those articles and blogs and helpful friends who counsel you to “just include your children in the kitchen” can go to hell.

Cooking or baking can be okay as an activity in and of itself. Like, if you want to put aside a three-hour block of time to make 20-minute muffins with your three-year-old, that can be a fine way to kill an afternoon. I mean, it sure as hell beats making crafts or getting down on the ground and actually playing with them in my books.

But if you actually, say, just want to make lunch? “Omigod,” you’ll be thinking, “Can you please just go and sprinkle playdoh all over the living room carpet or take a bingo dabber to the wall or unravel a roll of toilet paper? Can you please just do something that will take less time and energy to deal with than this?”

I tell you this because I, too, listened to those so-called experts. Spurred on by my four-year-old daughter’s love for her play kitchen and an increasingly picky appetite, I encouraged her to help me. We went shopping together and painstakingly picked out ingredients. We wore aprons and I talked her through every step. She was in charge of putting vegetable peelings into the organic waste and chopped up veggies into the pot. She sprinkled in seasonings. She watched meal after meal bubble away on the stove. She oohed and ahhed at the final product. She sat down and, as often as not, declared it yucky. “I don’t like it,” she’d say. “But you helped me make it!” I’d say.

And then yesterday, I was trying to slap together some roast beef sandwiches for lunch and she pulled up her “special stool” (ie. the regular kitchen step stool) to help. Fantastic.

There were two pairs of sliced bread stacked side-by-side on a cutting board.

“Would you like mustard on your sandwich?” I asked.

“Yes, but not that SPICY mustard!”

“Okay, I have some regular yellow mustard here for you.”

I squeezed some mustard on the top slice of bread on the first stack.

“I don’t want mustard on the top of my sandwich!!”

“It’s not going to be the top, sweetheart. I’m going to use this bottom slice of bread on the top, see?”

“No, no, no, NO! NOOOOOO!!!! I won’t eat it! Never, never, never! I’m never going to eat lunch again!”

And that was just the mustard. Learn from my mistakes.

Image credit.

Tags cooking, cooking with kids, lies, tantrums

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Cooking and Cleaning, Baked Pasta Edition

Post author By Rebecca Cuneo Keenan
Post date April 30, 2012

Disclosure: I am part of the Finish Blogger Program by Mom Central. I received compensation as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.

The good people at Finish and Mom Central Canada thought it would be fun for bloggers to post about a family dinner with baked on food and to show how the dishes clean up using Finish Quantum. Share your cooking experience and some before and after pics of the dishes, they said.

What I heard, though, was a call to trot out my inner Pioneer Woman. I mean, aside from the fantastic cooking and photographing, we’re practically the same person. (And the homeschooling, ohmygod. That woman is a saint, a saint who makes me want to cook wonderfully delicious and fattening things.)

But a seven month old baby and the t-ball, swimming, birthday party, kindergarten orientation, end-of-season hockey party schedule from hell dictated the dish. We’re having baked pasta with jarred sauce and hella cheese. Read carefully as I navigate you through the recipe in excruciating detail.

First, and this is important, pour a good amount of water in a big pot and put it on to boil. Don’t worry about cleaning your sink before you post pictures of it to the internet either.

While your waiting for the water to boil, gather the rest of your ingredients. I’m using some sort of tubular pasta that’s bigger than penne, but smaller than rigatoni. You can use whatever you want as long as it’s not spaghetti. Baked spaghetti is stupid. Learn from my mistakes. I also had most of a jar of this ah-mazing marinara sauce I just discovered at Costco. You can make your own if you like things to take longer and be less delicious. I used to be that way, too. Lastly, there’s the cheese. I happen to live around the corner from a fantastic little cheese factory with all the fresh mozzarella and ricotta and freshly grated Parmesan a heart can desire. You’ll have to make do with whatever you can get your hands on. Sorry.

Start grating the mozzarella. You can just tell how good this stuff is, can’t you? You’ll probably want to sneak a couple tastes just to make sure at this point too. It’s okay, I won’t tell.

Go ahead and grate all that cheese. What the hell are you saving it for anyway?

Your water’s probably boiling by now, so — wait for it — go ahead and add the pasta. What would you do without me?

Set your colander in the sink while you wait for the pasta to cook. And if you’re like me, you’ll probably have to wash it while you’re there.

It’s also a good idea to set out your baking dish. Again, I’m using a Pyrex dish, but you can use anything that’s oven safe as long it has an ample cheese sprinkling surface.

Things are about to get a little more involved at this point, so it’s not a bad idea to call in a helper. (Cupcake apron sold separately.)

Drain the pasta in the colander and then transfer to the baking dish. Aren’t you glad I told you to have them ready and waiting?

Pour on your tomato sauce. Life is good.

Take a well-deserved break while your helper mixes the pasta with the sauce.

Then let her sprinkle on the mozzarella cheese — all of the mozzarella cheese. Life just got better.

She’s going to want to add about a quarter cup of grated Parmesan, too. Don’t get in her way.

At this point, you can just pop this baby in a 350 or 375 degree oven for half an hour or until the cheese gets all good and bubbly. Or you can put a lid on it and put it in the fridge while you head out in a downpour to take a 6 year old to swimming lessons with a 3 year old and a 7 month old in tow. Whichever.

Eventually we returned home and popped that baby in the oven. This is not a cooking show, my friends. That is a real oven, greased up window and all.

And it’s ready! Do you see what the oven did to that cheese? Look at how wonderfully brown and crispy-gooey it is.

Look at it! Don’t look at the conspicuous lack of a salad, though. I was going to pick up greens to serve with the pasta, but did I mention the downpour and the three young children? Random veggies from the fridge it is!

And here’s the payback. (Well, there’s this and the calories applied directly to my hips.) That pan is covered in tomato-y grease and baked-on cheese. The picture doesn’t even really do it justice. Normally I’d let it soak for a bit in the sink and then scrub it with dish soap, elbow grease and scouring pads. This time they want me to put it in the dishwasher.

You guys. That is one shiny, clean baking dish. Even the glassware I washed with it is sparkling. Just pretend you don’t notice the giant container of Cascade dishwasher gel in the background. I was using that before and washing every single pot and pan by hand.

I am about to start saving a lot of time. Whatever should I do with it? [Pointedly not looking at the mountain of laundry or floor covered with toys.]

Tags #FinishRevolution, baked pasta, cooking, dish washing