Afternoon in the Kitchen

I had posted on fb a few days ago how I decided I should like soup. Ever since my high school days when Chicken Noodle soup was a standard meal EVERY Saturday night after softball, I had grown tired of soup and frankly, it had put me off soup for the following (however many) years. Friends of mine had been surprised that I didnt like soup- its not the flavours, its the consistency and just the idea of soup. If there is real food around, then lets eat that! I had a few comments on my status post, some not so helpful at all, but as I mentioned in a previous post, I had bought a cookbook on board and now, I thought I should use it. What better way to get into soup than making it yourself! So on Saturday afternoon, after some planning to get the ingredients, I decided to pull together a Chicken, Celery and Leek soup... ok, there isn’t any celery in it because I didnt go up to Kaufland ( the biggest supermarket in town) and my bouquet garni leaves a little to be desired- that store is again too far to walk after I’d already been out on Saturday ( buying a hand mixer at the other Kaufland, light bulbs for our new spiegelschrank and a grater for the carrot cake at Sopomarkt- amazing store! Its like Go-lo at home) and time was a-slipping on by! But that means the flavours are possibly NOT as they are supposed to be. BUT picking the chicken off the bones did remind me of my days working at DJs picking chicken for Debbie, the chef, for our brilliant Chicken and Basil Mayo sandwich ( which I have decided will be a staple in this house- I bought the basil plant for it! I LOVE this sandwich!). Plus, I learnt how to make Chicken Stock at home. Which is quite useful tool I suppose... although there are many easier ways to do this- just buy it right? But come on, where is the adventure in that? :)

I mentioned a carrot cake... and here it is.. its rather like a loaf, which I didn’t realize when I preparing to make it, until I read it went into a loaf tin. But its pretty nice looking eh? Complete with Lemon Cream cheese icing :)
The soup didnt turn out exactly how the picture has it.. but then I think they blended it because it looks like a potato soup – which it does have, but not pureed. It tasted not so bad and I think is a fair attempt in my first soup from scratch. I put too much pepper in though ( especially as i dont pepper anything!) but the overall outcome was good. And it, along with my carrot loaf and running to the shop, occupied my afternoon. Next project, I think I will attempt a Strudel, but we’ll see whether I make the pastry for that ( that part scares me!) or buy it.