When life gives you a cold, perfect your chicken soup

For two reasons, one a stupid rookie mistake involving packet pick-up and the other my craptastic cold, I missed the Navy 5-miler yesterday. Can y'all even believe it? I'm still disappointed, not least because I'd been prepping for months. 

I didn't sleep well on Saturday night and feel certain I wouldn't have run well or felt particularly terrific afterwards. I'm trying to channel my approaching-40 zen about this, but I admit that I'm glum.

That said, my crew started family tennis lessons on Saturday which we found insanely fun, Jack's baseball team won its game last night, and because the kids returned to school and I still feel under the weather today, it seemed a mighty fine time to perfect my homemade chicken noodle soup.

I took meticulous notes while cooking this morning so that I could share with you what will now be our family's chicken soup recipe. You can now find it here: Chicken Noodle Soup, Best.

There is such a lovely economy in chicken soup. Use all of the carrots and celery, every bit of the chicken. Out of fairly humble ingredients comes an elixir.

If you are so inclined, and I do hope that maybe you are, please buy the best-quality chicken you can. Think of your chicken roaming a farm, flapping its wings and eating bugs and seed and so forth, growing strong and flavorful as it does so. Your soup, body and any ailments will notice the difference and will thank you profusely.

I myself purchase spring chickens at the farmers market in March/April or, once I've run out of those I then stock in my chest freezer, buy Step 3, 4 or 5 chickens at Whole Foods or another reputable butcher. The Step ratings signify the treatment, food and life the chickens have had prior to being slaughtered. Your average supermarket chicken did not live or die well, and I just can't go there.

I also like to use homemade chicken stock which I make and then freeze in 4-cup portions every time I roast a whole chicken. The skin, bones, tendons and fascia makes a great base for stock, and the flavor of your soup will be all the better for it. If you don't want to make stock, or don't have any on hand, buy a good quality one.

Your produce and spices are important too. Carrots should be bright orange and require a bit of elbow grease and a sharp knife to cut. Celery should be a vibrant green, and please don't toss the leaves; they'll enrich your soup. Use a juicy yellow onion that is in no way desiccated or sad. Lemon zest brightens everything, including this soup, so have a nice fresh lemon on hand.

The three spices that I use in my chicken soup are bay leaves, cinnamon and allspice. They provide a savory, slightly sweet depth that complements beautifully the schmaltzy goodness gained from the chicken bits.

Please love yourself (or your family or the friend for whom you're making this) even more by using extra-wide egg noodles as the noodle in your soup. Egg noodles bring the comfort factor of good chicken soup to the next level. Pour them in with a generous hand, and you won't regret it (although you must remember that they'll sponge up quite a bit of your broth so don't go too nuts OR have extra stock or water on hand if the liquid level in your pot gets low).

Cook your soup slowly, at least an hour, hopefully two, until the chicken starts to fall apart, joint by joint. Little bones, or even larger ones, might escape the skeleton. This is fine; don't remove them until the end because they'll continue to add depth and flavor, even once disembodied. Indeed, removing the skin and carcass is your last step before skimming egregious fat from your broth. 

Get out a lovely bowl, a deep one, and ladle in some soup just for you. If you haven't already, give thanks to your chicken and the time you just lavished on your self and this meal. Enjoy. Better health will be yours soon.

An added bonus? This is a one-pot meal!

Apple pie and those cute little Wms-Sonoma crust cutters

You guys, when Williams-Sonoma has a big clearance sale, I look for originally way-overpriced things, like dried pasta and baking tools, and leap if I find a goodie. Three times now, I've picked up festive boxes of pie crust cutters, and I'm gonna tell y'all, I am never sorry.

a sample from my collection

When I get my Martha Stewart on, which is usually during times of seasonal change -"Oh hey, fall's a comin'! I NEED to have crust shaped like autumnal leaves!- or angst -"If those kids don't shut their pie-holes, I'm gonna BLOW."- making pies feels extra lovely and soothing. And these cutters bring any pie to the next Martha-Stewart-level.

Pie is pretty much universally comforting, especially a simple fruit pie with just the right filling to crust ratio. Pie conjures thoughts of love and thoughtfulness, decadent breakfasts and visits with a friend in the late afternoon. 

My primary impetus for this evening's pie was a manic desire to use my new pie plate from Kaufmann Mercantile, a favorite online shop of mine. It's a ruggedly organic ceramic beauty that I simply could not say no to.

Kaufmann Mercantile's ceramic pie plate. You will love it as much as I do, and no, they didn't pay or even ask me to say that.

It really wants to hold an apple pie, what with its heft and color and utter fall'ness. And though most of the past week in DC made many residents believe we actually lived on the surface of the sun, there were snips and bits of cool breeze, early morning chill and the sort of clue that cooler days might very well be coming.

So, apple pie. Because Ginger Golds are out, even though excellent pie apples like Mutsus and Jonagolds aren't yet, you can get by with a few Granny Smiths and such.

After rolling out the bottom crust and gently placing the spiced apples into it, I went to town with my crust cutters and fashioned this lovely cover. Gorgeous, eh? I can't wait to jump in. Recipe will be posted very soon in both Desserts and Pies.

Em's apple pie

Cauliflower and Brené

So the other day at the store, I about fell out when I saw fresh Hatch chiles just sitting there waiting to be purchased. I can never find Hatch chiles in DC; they're like the Halley's Comet of eastern seaboard produce. 

In any case, next to the chiles were the most spectacular heads of cauliflower. Each one looked like a pearly white bowling ball was nestled in elephantine green leaves. "Fall's a'comin, shoppers!" I swear I heard one call. And so I bought it too. Also some sharp cheddar because Hatch chiles like cheddar and so does my husband.

Although my Tuesday, school's-in-session adrenaline had worn out by early evening, I was hellbent on combining my three delicious foodstuffs into one dish and so made a casserole, the added bonus being I got to unearth and use a lovely dish I rarely employ.

I roasted the peppers on the grill, blanched the cauliflower florets, shredded the cheese, and made buttery-garlicky breadcrumbs from a stale baguette. Happily and knowingly, I tossed things together, layered it into my buttered dish, sprinkled parsley everywhere and generously and baked.

roasted chile skins

Tom walked in as I took it out of the oven, and said, "Now honey, that does not look like anything I would like." True enough as he dislikes cauliflower and peppers, but I told him he best get started on his own dinner then. #amiright?

Naturally I neglected to take a photo of the finished product, but really, it was ugly as sin anyway, so who cares. Casseroles are often unattractive but equally as often, their looks are inversely proportional to their flavor.

I'm just back from hearing Brené Brown present her new book, Rising Strong, and have gone from dress to PJs to last bowl of cauliflower cha-cha in short order. T may not have cottoned to this dish, but it fed me for three really hectic days, so I'll take the short cut, thank you. I think Brené, a 5th-generation Texan who is awesomely funny and authentic and utterly devoid of bullshit, would enjoy it too, and you can bet I'd love to sit with her around my table and laugh, laugh, laugh while keeping it real.