Comfort Food

It has finally been cold enough for a few days that we've been able to make soup and biscuits for dinner. We had some friends over for a roast chicken meal (baked acorn squash with brown sugar and butter, stuffing, mashed taters (what'ssss taterss, preciousss? every time), steamed carrots, and the chicken was moist inside, crispy outside = tres yum) and thus had two little chicken carcasses with which to make some delightful chicken soup. I love whole chickens and the two meals I get from just one small bird. Around here, they can be had for about $3.50 each. Here is the spread of recipes:

Roast chicken

1 whole chicken
1/4 cup of sea salt
1 T ground black pepper
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp poultry seasoning
2 T softened butter

Take your thawed or fresh chicken and rub that sucker with butter. Get your hand between the skin and meat and rub butter there, too. This makes the skin crispy. Sprinkle with all the spices, saving the salt for last. Make sure the salt gets all over the whole bird. You can put aromatics in the cavity if you like. (onion, celery, carrots, crushed cloves of garlic) Cover with foil, bake in 350° oven for about 30 mins or until a thermometer reads 160° in the breast. Take the foil off and let the skin crisp up in the dry heat until desired color is reached. Don't be shy.

Acorn squash

I like to get these done fast. I also have only one rack in my oven, so this method is my ideal solution.

2 medium acorn squashes (squashi? squash?)
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 teaspoons butter

Split the squashes in half and remove seeds. Clean your microwave plate very well. Put the squash, cut side down, on the plate and nuke for at least 5 mins or until soft. Turn over, put into a pie plate or whatever will hold them (I put them on the rack of my toaster oven), and sprinkle with brown sugar and add a pat of butter. Bake at 350°, basting occasionally with the gooey liquid in the middle until you have nicely browned squash. You can slice these pieces in half and just serve in their shells (my favorite, no hassle method) or allow them to cool slightly and scoop the flesh into a serving bowl (the kids' favorite no hassle method). Add salt if desired.

Mashed potatoes

I was a bit leery of making mashed taters with skins, but these turned out great. The secret is to have a friend who can really scrub potatoes, or use thin-skinned yukon golds. (scrub those, too)

1 large potato or two small potatoes per person, scrubbed and nasty parts cut out
1/4 cup butter (at least)
1/2 cup sour cream (at least)
2 teaspoons chicken bullion granules
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper

Cut the potatoes into large chunks and boil until soft. Drain thoroughly and allow to cool/dry for just a minute before dumping into mixing bowl. Add all of your add-ins before mixing, sprinkling evenly over the top so you don't have to mix too much. Begin mixing on medium-low, using your spatula to encourage larger chunks through the blades. Mix until lumps are mostly gone, but not until potatoes get slimy. Some people call slimy mashed potatoes creamy. They are wrong. Creamy mashed potatoes should still have a somewhat starchy texture and shouldn't ooze on your plate when you plop a pile of fluffy potato goodness in a place of honor next to the chicken. Correct spices early on so you don't have to over-beat.

The carrots were just steamed in my rice cooker steaming basket and tossed with butter and salt. Stuffing was from a box and made according to the directions. I also like to steam whole kernel corn and eat that with my mashed taters.


What to do with a carcass:

Remove as much meat as possible. Dice up meat and set it aside in the fridge.
Place the remaining carcass, including the wings, tail, neck, and any drippings you might have accidentally left in the pan from gravy making (heck, you can even add left over gravy) into a pot large enough to hold your bird, a couple of quarts of water (or enough water to cover) and a few extras.

Extras:
An onion, peeled and rough chopped.
Any carrots you might have, even those slightly old, dry-looking ones.
Celery, especially the hearts and any leaves you're not going to use for the soup.
More cloves of garlic, smashed.
A few cardamom pods, crushed.
1 T pepper corns.
3-4 bay leaves

Put the heat up to high until it's simmering. Reduce the heat to low or med-low and simmer. If you boil this, the flavor will be off. Just simmer for at least an hour, but the longer the better, up until about 6 hours.

IMPORTANT: I've heard of people making their broth and then putting their strainers in the sink and dumping their precious soup stock down the drain while retaining the ugly, sorry-looking pile of trash that made it. DON'T do this. Put a bowl on your counter (one large enough that the drainer can nest inside), put your drainer in that, and then dump. Don't worry if your "other stuff" is still sitting in the broth at this point. Simple lift the drainer and place it on a plate with a lip. Let this cool while you work with the rest of the soup. If desired, run the broth through another fine sieve just in case your big one isn't thorough enough. This will keep any rogue pepper corns or cardamom seeds out of your soup.

1 large onion
3 large carrots, scrubbed, or three handsful of baby carrots
Celery, if you have any, washed
MORE garlic (mwa-hahahaha)
fresh ground pepper to taste
1/4 cup of long grain rice (or brown rice, yum)
any other veggies you want to add. I like to put at least one green thing in, as well as some chopped cabbage.

Chop the onion up and add to a sautee pan with butter. Grind some pepper over it and sautee until it begins to turn color. Add chopped or small-diced carrots and brown those up a bit, too. Deglaze the pan and put all that into your broth. Add the rice. Honest, it gets huge, so don't go over-adding. Add garlic, chopped celery, and cabbage. If you're adding broccoli or peas, do that last. You can also add in herbs of choice at this point:

2 T parsley
1 tsp Oregano
1 1/2 tsp basil
optional: 1 tsp ground coriander

Simmer until the carrots are tender but still firm and the rice is soft. Add in your broccoli, peas, and chopped chicken from the fridge. Warm through.

If you need to extend the broth, add water and bullion granules.


Some awesome cheddar drop biscuits.
(inspiration for these comes from here)

2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsps baking powder
2 T sugar
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 cup butter-flavored crisco
1 cup milk
1 cup shredded cheese (cheddar or co-jack)

Put flour, salt, baking powder, sugar, and garlic powder into a medium bowl. Stir thoroughly with a fork. Add the crisco and stir that with your fork until you get that coarse-crumb texture we all know and love. Add milk and stir with fork until just combined. Add cheese and stir lightly until combined.

Drop by tablespoons onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 425° for about 10 mins or until the tops get gold in spots. Let them rest a minute after you pull them out before removing from pan.