Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Tuesday smells like...

Okay, so this post is totally going to read like a Saturday smells like... blog post.  The thing is, I'm praising J's talent for cooking (and I'm afraid I'll forget it by Satuday), so I figure it works for a Tuesday's Talent post, too.

Over the weekend (or maybe last week?  When I'm sick it all runs together.), J roasted a whole chicken.  He's really just started doing this kind of thing and we've learned that the 'low and slow' method works best.  We've also learned that slow roasting doesn't work for supper on a weeknight (my mom can attest to that one), but it works great as a prepare ahead kind of thing.  So that night (whenever it was) J roasted the chicken.  Then another day this weekend he boiled down the stock into a great broth.  Now, typically, he'll take this stock and turn it into a chicken tortilla soup or something like that.  He's pretty good at it.

He's also getting pretty good at listening to his wife.  Sometimes, especially when I'm sick, I prefer bland food.  I don't know if you've ever eaten chicken tortilla soup, but bland isn't a word you'd use to describe it.  I expressed to J that if I was going to eat his soup, he needed to leave it as it was--plain chicken broth.  And you know what?  He listened!  A little salt and pepper, and I think that's it (that's all I can taste anyway).

But here's where the talent really comes in:  He knew that I'd be getting better soon and might be ready to add something to the soup.  So he diced green onions and chopped up some of the roasted chicken.  He put it all together in the fridge and let me know about it.  Yesterday, when I came in from W-S (where I'd worked an hour longer than planned and missed lunch), the soup was my first stop (after letting Zep out, of course).  J is amazing.  A cup of chicken broth, heated up in the microwave, a handful of chicken and a spoonful of green onions later.  That's it.  And it was the best cup of homemade soup ever!

So there you go:  J's talent for cooking as shared through chicken soup!

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