Something Yum - chicken ginger soup

Hello! 

The other day I made this soup, and it was very delicious, so I thought I would share the recipe with you all.. Are you a soup person?  I definitely am.  Some people I know don't consider soup a meal, I just can't agree!  Maybe I just have such massive bowls of soup that it becomes a meal sized serve.  

Anyway, my boss gave me this recipe for Chicken Ginger Soup, he is a real ginger fan, it has so many great health benefits ( Google it if you are interested, it really is good for you!), and it gives this soup a lovely heat that is more subtle than just chilli.   

It is a thin, brothy type soup so would be good as a starter for an Asian feast, or I just have a bowlful for lunch and feel very healthy, like I've done something good for my body. ( And believe me, my body needs a lot of positive work at the moment, I have not been treating it like a temple!)

So here's the recipe!

Healing Chicken Ginger Soup

For the Broth:

2 bone-in free-range chicken breasts (about 1kg total)

8 cups water

1 large onion, chopped

3 stalks celery, chopped

1 large carrot, chopped

1 whole head garlic, cut in half cross-wise

1/4 to 1/2 cup finely chopped fresh ginger (or more!)

2 to 3 thai chiles, chopped or 1 teaspoon crushed red chili flakes

2 cups chopped shiitake mushrooms

1 stalk fresh lemongrass, chopped

Small bunch of coriander

1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

3 teaspoons  sea salt

For the Soup:

1 medium onion, cut into crescent moons

3 to 4 stalks celery, sliced into diagonals

3 carrots, cut into matchsticks

2 to 3 cups sliced shiitake mushrooms

cooked chicken pulled from the bone and chopped

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Optional Additions/Toppings:

rice noodles

chopped fresh basil

chopped fresh coriander

chopped fresh Thai green chilies

lime wedges

To make the broth, place all ingredients for broth into a 6 litre pot. Cover and bring to a boil, reduce heat medium-low and simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Strain broth into a large bowl or another pot using a colander. Place chicken breasts onto a plate to cool. Pour the broth back into the pot. Once chicken is cooled, remove the skin, pull the meat from the bone and chop the chicken into bite-sized pieces.

Place all of the vegies for the soup (onion, carrot, celery, and shiitake mushrooms) into the pot with the broth. Cover and simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes. Add the chicken. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Simmer a minute or two more or until vegetables are cooked to your liking. Ladle soup into bowls and serve with a handful of basil, coriander, and cabbage on top. Sprinkle with thai chiles if desired. You can also add a handful of cooked thai rice noodles to each bowl if desired. Squeeze a little lime juice over each bowl.

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This is my pot full of the broth ingredients, ready to simmer away on the stove, no wonder this is packed with flavour! 

My only changes were that I used a whole chicken, instead of breasts on the bone, and I used dried shiitake mushrooms (found in the supermarket in the Asian section),  fresh ones are hard to find around here!

If you are feeling a bit under the weather, I think this is the soup for you!

Have you eaten anything delicious lately? 

Do you treat your body like a temple or do you give it a hard time like me? 

( I am starting to change this though!)

Back soon with a crochet update.

Have a great day!

6/52 Year of Happy

Four things/moments from my week that made me happy.

1. Making progress on my star stitch blanket, the end is in sight!

2. Choosing colours for an exciting yarny endeavour, I can't wait to tell you what's going on!

3. Finding a heap of dried broadbeans in the garden and adding them to my little store of saved seeds.

4.  Spending a day turning my box of apricots into jam.  It's probably a bit runny, I have trouble telling when to take it off the heat.

I hope you had happy moments in your week too! 

Saturday Sourdough Adventuring....

My sour dough pet, looking nice and frothy and healthy!

 Hello!

Today I thought I'd show you my recent dabbling in sourdough baking, I am very much a novice, but it is an enjoyable adventure nurturing a little sourdough pet.  

I have been wanting to have a go at sourdough bread for some time, I bought a great book a couple of years ago and had been meaning to get a sourdough starter going but was a bit afraid I'd kill it!

So when my boss gifted me a little bucket of established starter a few weeks ago, I thought now is the time to get into it!  It helped that it came from a lovely sourdough bakery in the city somewhere, so I knew that this starter had made some great  bread in the past, and I should be able to do it too!

I have been keeping it well fed and it has been a good little starter and doing all the right things for me.

Here are my first 3 balls of sourdough.  I used the basic sourdough recipe from  'Bourke Street Bakery'   by Paul Allam and David McGuinness. (I have also been reading up a bit on the internet, there is tonnes of info out there.) It is a very thorough recipe for a beginner like me, well explained with lots of instructions.  The only thing I did differently was that I combined the water component of the recipe and half the flour to the starter, mixed it together and let it sit for 1hr and bubble up a bit to make a 'sponge', then I added the rest of the flour and proceeded as per the recipe.

I have to say, this type of baking is not fast!  Definitely slow food here!

But a very enjoyable way to make bread, highly recommend it!

One thing the book said can be a problem for home bakers is finding a humid, warm environment for the final prove.  I think I have a really effective solution, I am sure I am not the first to think of it, but I am going to tell you anyway!  I had a couple of polystyrene boxes they package broccoli in, with tight fitting lids, (they are quite insulating), so I got one and put a couple of kettles worth of boiling water in the bottom, stuck a couple of upturned bowls in it so my tin was out of the water, put the bread tin in it (perfect fit) and stuck the lid on.  The steam from the water was trapped, creating a lovely warm humid environment for my bread to rise in.! 

That box made a great prover!

Here are the loaves just out of the oven, that crust was really crunchy, hard and crusty, very delicious!

We couldn't wait to cut it and start scoffing our warm bread!  

As you can see the sourdough starter did a great job of raising our bread, this looks like bread I make with normal yeast, and it is such a lovely living process!

So thank you little pet starter, you are amazing!

I am looking forward to making other interesting bread, so stay tuned !

How is your weekend going?

 Are you doing fun things?

Talk soon, bye!