How to cure all ills and mend a broken heart….or so I am told!

The Zarkos family Chicken and Vegetable Soup

This is a traditional recipe that uses fresh vegetables and half a roasted chicken. Some call it rustic, others call it frugal, still others call it simple. It is rumoured, in our family anyway, to cure all ills, and mend a broken heart.

Ingredients:

• Half a chicken
• 3 medium sized Potatoes
• 1/2 a sweet potato
• 1/2 a swede
• 2 large carrots
• 2 sticks of celery
• 2 large cloves of garlic
• 1 white onion
• Teaspoon of double concentrate tomato puree
• Bay Leaf
• Salt and Pepper
• Chili Pepper (depending on the severity of the broken heart)
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Roast half a chicken in the oven for 30 minutes on 140 degrees (fan assisted)

Chop all vegetable up roughly into 3 cm cubes, place in a large flat based pan, I tend to use a paella pot. Glaze with Olive oil, tomato puree and pepper. Cook for 5 minutes on high heat continually stirring.

Add kettle boiled water. (enough to cover vegetables) Gently simmer for further ten minutes, continually add enough water to cover vegetables.
Allow the chicken to cool for 5 minutes and then remove the skin.

Place chicken and all vegetables and juices in large saucepan and completely cover with water. Bring to the boil.

Simmer for an hour. Best served with fresh crusty bread and butter. I tend to cook it in the morning, the reheat it for supper.

Do lobsters really scream when you cook them?

Sundays oh how I love Sundays! Today even more so than most.

Noah decided that he would bring various musical instruments to church and play along with the worship band! when I say musical instruments read, a blow up guitar, a toy trumpet, a Moroccan Sintir and two of the most annoying (why did I buy them?) rattle drums. He seems to already be displaying rock star tendencies, as I caught sight of him with the blow up guitar thrashing it around whilst head banging.

After lunch we had planned on Gruffalo hunting in the local woods, a past time that neither Noah, Neal or I ever seem to tire of. However it was a wee bit windy here today and one look outside the three of us opted for indoor free play. I love that “indoor free play”, what that really means is daddy played on the iPad, Noah got his cars out, racing with his imaginary brothers around the house (yes all 14 of them) and I baked  The Everyday Cake (if the link works you should be able to click on it and see the recipe)

There appeared to be a lobster in my house today, why I do not know, but there was and Sunday dinner consisted of mashed potatoes, broccoli, peas and lobster. Noah was excited, he had told anyone and everyone that we were having lobster for dinner. He has asked questions about the shell, the pincers or nippers as he calls them and how we cook it, how we eat it and if it taste the same as one of those crabs he caught this summer.

Now I know that I am fortunate with Noah, and he tends to eat most things. We have one meal time rule in our house, and that is we all eat the same thing. Ever since Noah was a baby, he sat up the table with us, smelling all the foods that he would one day eat. I used to sit him in his bouncy chair on the table (do not try this at home and then sue me if you baby falls off) He has always been in the kitchen with me, as a baby I used to wear him in a sling whilst I cooked. Once he could walk I gave him vegetables to cut up using the pampered chef my safe cutter (brilliant buy). He sat on the work surface dipping his fingers in various cake mixtures, trying different tastes and textures. I can not say that this has or has not contributed to Noah’s eating, but these are things I did. On the whole we eat a variety of meat, fish, vegetables, rice, pasta, potatoes and puddings. I am not saying our diet is perfect, I mean I love biscuits! But I think we do alright.  Anyway, I digress, back to this lobster.

Now cooking it was the easy part, boil water, add lobster, wait till it turns orange. Getting into it, now that is a whole other matter. Our dinning table looked like a lobster has literally exploded on there, as I glanced up from trying to delicately remove some meat from the tail with my fork, Noah had a whole claw in his mouth and was trying to suck out the meat. Overall it is safe to say, yes our family eats lobster, but next time we would need at least three, and actually I would prefer to be sitting at a table on the beach watching the sun set, as some one served me fresh lobster!

Now Noah is in bed, Neal is back on the iPad and after I sign of here, I am heading for another piece of cake, cup of tea and will be curling up on the sofa with my book. I love reading nearly as much as I love cake!