Flu Stew

A few weeks ago my mom gave me a huge stalk of ginger, claiming that she has decided it is disgusting and does not want to cook with it. (She has never cooked with ginger or eaten it at all but bought a bunch in a recent health kick.) I happen to love the stuff so I happily carted home the fresh stuff and a little sidekick bag of candied ginger.

Ginger is one of those roots that is so healthy for you I can't believe people don't just throw it in everything! You can make it into a tea, eat it candied or pickled or if you please, even just chew on it raw. Or, my favorite thing to do with ginger, use it in soups! You can chop up a little of it and season your soup mildly with the fresh flavor, or use more to create a light and bright soup with the zingy notes that only fresh ginger can deliver.

As I said before, ginger is amazing for your health, and I strongly recommend everyone to eat it in any way you please around flu and cold season. As we have our chicken soup here in America, China has their soup-y tonic that uses a lot of ginger and lemongrass to combat the season's harshest germs. Ginger has a colorful history, including its use as one of the herbs to help combat the plague. It is prized in many Asian and Indian cultures, yet again, leaving me baffled as to why we don't eat it more often here in America. It is also used to alleviate any sort of gastrointestinal ailments (a fancy way of saying it will help your butt not stink up the house) and it has direct anti-inflammatory effects.

But if you are not used to the delightful flavor of fresh ginger (first of all, don't let your first taste be of candied ginger! It can be pretty strong!) try it in a hearty soup. While I was making dinner tonight, my simple veggie soup turned into a dinner targeted specifically at fighting flu germs by using the wonderful things I learned in school to become a natural chef. I am feeling a little germy after taking Boo to the doctors' office and there were many sneezing coughing kids...

I chose every ingredient carefully. I have the ginger and garlic for their antioxidants and cold fighting properties. Then I added onions which has a lot of the same benefits and vitamins as garlic such as vitamin B6 and vitamin C. Carrots and celery for flavor and because pretty much every veggie has some good for you things in them. (yay veggies!) Then chicken on the bone, becuase even though it may be thought by some to be an old wives' tale, chicken soup really does fight colds. In Chinese medicine it is thought to give you energy and chicken has been shown to support the immune system. Perfect for what we are trying to do here! And then my secret ingredient, mostly for flavor and because the high amount of vitamin C, I added 1 whole unpeeled apple with the skin on. And lastly, I used some regular button mushrooms because ancient Egyptians actually thought mushrooms were the key to immortality and would give you superhuman powers... do I need another reason? Beau has named it: Flu Stew!

Flu Stew (ginger chicken apple soup)

coconut oil for sauteing
2 chicken legs on the bone
4 small carrots, peeled and chopped
3 celery ribs, chopped
1 red onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 inches peeled ginger, minced
1 1/2 cups sliced button mushrooms
1 unpeeled apple, cut in half
chicken broth to cover
salt and pepper to taste


In a stock pot heat the oil. Brown the chicken legs on all sides and then remove from the pot and set aside. Add all of the vegetables and the ginger and garlic and saute for about 10 until they are soft. Add the chicken back in the pot and cover everything with chicken broth. Add in the apple. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer until the chicken is cooked through. Once chicken is cooked, pull it out and pull of the meat and then add back into the soup. Before serving, remove the apple.
If the soup is good but tastes as if it is "missing something" a little more salt and some apple cider vinegar should do the trick to brighten it up a bit. For a heartier soup that you can use as a main course, throw in some pasta!

chicken soup for the lazy girl's soul

I am watching You've Got Mail while my body attempts to digest an entire half a tube of Toll House cookies I made and then foolishly ate all of. Beau is away at a graduation party and I am, yet again, stuck at home because it is very unbecoming for a young pregnant lady to stay up all night at graduation parties. Not only is it unbecoming, but I am quite sure it would be impossible because I am not very good at staying up late these days.

So while I am sitting here on the couch with my fuzzy little kitty, I keep imagining how wonderful it would be to have an actual bathtub and maybe some counter space! Imagine the possibilities! I really hate having no counter space, but I suppose it just challenges me to be more creative. And when I have counter space someday and a dishwasher, along with a sink that is is bigger than 1 foot by 1 foot, I will appreciate it all the more. I love walking around William Sonoma and pretending I have a bunch of money and I am there to buy anything I want and just fill my kitchen with tons of useless and expensive gadgets. Oh the American dream...

In other news! This is a blog about food and so I do have a little bit of food stuff that has nothing to do with my tiny kitchen. I have been cooking chicken for quite a few weeks now and for some reason I have not made chicken soup yet! Until the other day when Beau wanted soup for lunch on a particularly rainy and overcast day. It was so perfectly simple and I just had to share the recipe.

First of all, the most important part of chicken soup is the broth it is cooked in. Otherwise it is just water with a few chunks of chicken and some veggies floating in it. To make a good broth, all you need is the scraps from a roasted chicken dinner. The day that I roasted a chicken, I removed all of the meat that I could from the whole chicken carcass and placed it in a crockpot. Then I used some scraps from veggies that I had chopped, like the skins and ends of onions, carrot ends and celery ends and placed those in as well. I covered it with filtered water, put on the lid and let it cook on high (but keep in mind I have a very old crockpot and even the high setting is not very high) overnight and into the middle of the next morning. There is no specific time line, just let it go for quite a while. Then you strain the broth into a mason jar using some cheesecloth and vuah-la! I was taught to skim the fat off of my broth, but have found from a kitchen I volunteer in, that in fact a hefty layer of fat, once solid after being in the fridge, can make an excellent preservative for the broth. Not just that but as they say, the flavor really is in the fat! So I leave all of the fat from the broth and it ends up floating to the surface and being about two fingers length. The broth can stay in the fridge for quite some time and can be used in all sorts of things.

Once you have such a wonderful and flavorful broth, chicken soup easily follows. All you have to do is chunk up (cut into bite size chunks) some leftover chicken breast, chop onion, celery and carrot and set it all aside. In a stockpot saute the veggies until soft and flavorful. Sprinkle with a little salt to help release the flavor. If some brown bits get stuck to the bottom of your pan as it does on my non-stick pan, this is a good thing! Add some stock to "de-glaze" the pan and you will get all that yummy stuff up and into your soup. These are called Kitchen Treasures. ;) I actually had a teacher once who loved these little bits so much that she named her personal chef business after them. But that is besides the point... after your pan is successfully de-glazed, add the rest of your broth. Then add the chicken bits, bring the soup to a boil then bring it down to a simmer. Let it simmer for a while to heat the chicken through and meld the flavors. And you are done! Season with salt and pepper and I promise you will not regret taking the time to make soup. Not that it even really took any time at all.

So there you have it! A fantastic way to use leftover chicken. Served with some homemade rustic baguette bread that Beau and I bought from this adorable little bread shop, it is the perfect lunch on a cold day. I hope you get the chance to try it. :) Oh and by the way, if you are wondering about measurements for the soup, I really just eyeball the whole thing. So just go with it and have fun!