How To Make Chicken Soup With Leftover Chicken

The author and his soup

So you’ve bought a roasted chicken for dinner and stuffed your face ’til you can’t eat any more.  Now you’re wondering what to do with all that yummy leftover chicken.  While there’s a plethora of ideas, from a chicken sandwich to chicken salad, but one idea I really enjoy is turning my leftover roasted chicken into hearty chicken soup.  Especially at this time of year, when it’s getting to be cold season and everyone around you is getting sick, it’s the perfect time to make a batch of soup.  So here’s my recipe.  Hope you enjoy!

What you’ll need:

1 leftover chicken

1 1/2 onions

4 baby carrots

1 potato

1/2 a box of spaghetti

Dash of pepper, salt

Once you’ve finished as much of the chicken from your original meal as you want, store the chicken in your refrigerator for seven days.   A good tool to keep track of your aging chicken is to remember that this is the same amount of time it took God to create the universe.  Think of your chicken as being reborn again.  Storing the chicken is easy.  You can store it in the same container you bought it in.  After seven days, the chicken is ready to be another meal.

On the seventh day, you’re ready to cook (despite the wishes of others).  At this point, it’s very important that you don’t call your mom.  Though your mother may have a great chicken soup and know her way around a kitchen, have pride in your ability to not want help.  Also, you have the internet at your disposal, and that’s never been wrong when it comes to chicken soup.

Start by filling a large pot with water.  Fill it near to the top and put it over the fire.  While it’s heating up, put the chicken in.  There’s no need to cut it up.  Once it’s in there long enough, the meat will fall right off the bones.  Add 3 boulilon cubes for flavor.  Next, chop up some onions -alot of onions.  I like to use about one and a half.  A sweet onion work fine for me.  Next, chop up about 3 or 4 baby carrots.  A good trick is to snack on the bag the whole week until you remember your leftover chicken in the fridge and why you bought the carrots in the first place.  By then there should be just the right amount left.  Follow this up with the cut up potato.  After you’ve added your vegetables, you may want to add some spaghetti to the pot.  I like to take the box of spaghetti out of the cabinet upside down so that it all falls on the floor first before I put it in my soup.  This allows you to wonder why you’re doing this in the first place.  It’s a good idea to rinse it as well, but this is really optional.

By now your soup should be a cloudy white and your home should smell like a bad jewish butcher.  If you’re waiting for a film of chicken fat to appear at the top of your soup that you should remove, you may want to just dunk around the dirty white cloud instead.  Look for anything that looks too uninviting.  I like to pull out the smaller bones, any black stringy things, and the lungs.  Don’t be too worried if there’s alot you want to pull out.  If you’re like me, you’re anticipating the clean up and pulling things out will only help you with this once you’re done.

Next, turn the fire off and spoon out some soup.  You should only eat a bowl or so as a taste test.  At this point, the soup isn’t ready yet and you’ll know it.  Take the soup, now cooling, and heave it into three tupperware bins.  You’ll want to freeze the first two and refrigerate the third for when you’re hungrier.  If you’ve lost some of your appetite, your soup should almost be ready.

Wait two days and talk to your mom and ask her about the color.  If you’ve followed all the directions correctly, then your mother’s response should be something like ‘I’ve never, ever, ever made, or heard of, making chicken soup with leftover chicken’.  Again, something like this.  Depending on your mother this answer may vary.

If you’ve done everything right up to this point, then by the third day, your throat should be scratchy and your stomach will hurt. Remember, feeling sick is exactly why you made the soup in the first place.  Picturing the soup as what you’ll eat should also make you feel sick at this point so be sure to stop by the market and buy some fresh chicken soup.  Buy a potato as well for a simple baked potato.  Bring both these ingredients home.

Wrap the potato in aluminum foil and put it in the oven at 450 for about an hour.  Take the soup you just bought and put the soup in a bowl, add a dash of salt and pepper to your liking and enjoy!

For additional recipes, please check back here from time to time.

Addt’l notes:

You may also want to consider that the soup is what made you sick, but this is not a necessary step to the final dish.

Its helpful to keep the three soups in your refrigerator as long you don’t want to think about washing the tupperware.

If you’re worried about what to do with all the soup, try giving some to your girlfriend and her friends.  However be prepared to loose your tupperware.

If you have a story about this recipe, let us know!

Thanksgiving Weekend

It’s the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I’m on the C train heading toward my sisters to watch my neice for the night. There’s a man to my right with in-ears molded for his iPhone and an Obama pin on his green canvas jacket. The door right next to me only slides open on one side. Luckily, there’s not many people on the train this evening. It’s late in the day on a rainy, Fall, Sunday.
Thanksgiving is an easy Holiday for Jews, which is why so many of us probably like it. It’s like showing up for class and getting an A in Being American -just show up, eat, and go home. No synagogue. No guilt. No main characters or traditions like gifts or fireworks or anything else that might require stressing out (do you even know what it’s like to go to the kosher butcher?)
This year My mom was off duty to her dismay (she likes making this holiday), and so I brought Starr and we went to my sister’s in-laws since we were holiday orphans. Starr made a Feta Dip that was good, but was strong and bit too salty fro all that feta (I was hoping for pumpkin pie). Overall, the food was nice and we didn’t overstay our welcome since my sister had to get her kids home at a decent hour (kids are the perfect exit strategy).
It was a pretty straightforward Thanksgiving, unlike, say, my aunts on Saturday where we went to spend some time that we missed Thursday, with my dad and grandma. There, my neice stands on chairs and throws imaginary balls to evryone. My nephew tells my aunt to use her ‘indoor voice’ when she’s talking too loud (always). We start the meal with chocolate hip cookies and Tostitos. And this is all around a main course of vegetable lasagna which happened to be really good.
There’s a lot of kids there and between my cousin Jodi (19), Liat (18), Stacey (16), and Starr (21), it almost felt like I was in The Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants.
Last night Starr and I got pretty drunk at our friends concert at the Bowery Ballroom. We got into a fight over chicken fingers and onion rings at 3:30 in the morning in front of the bulletproof glass at Palace Fried Chicken. We ended up getting the 6piece chicken smackers an I took some Laughing Cow cheese and put it on a pita chip for her.  Unfortunately, this didn’t appease her.  Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore and collapsed into bed.
I awoke with a headache. I took two ibuprofen, and then a third one later. I tried to get away cause I wanted to watch football but more, I wanted to figure out how to backup legally purchased DVDs on my mac.  I had borrowed Fiddler OnThe Roof from my grandmother, and promised I’d get it back to her soon.  But it wasn’t so easy.  It was a rainy, nasty day and we decided eventually to grab a late breakfast at a place called Autour Du Monde.

This is a really nice cafe/restaurant in a neighborhood that doesn’t really have the clientele (yet), so it wasn’t surprising that we were the only ones in the place.  I was cranky, and was getting upset that I wasn’t getting water poured down my throat instantly, or that the coffee didn’t come faster.  But it is a french place, so I let it go (til my stomach started to growl).  The food eventually did come out and it’s really, really good. A few more customers came in too, by the time we left.  I had a poached egg on a brioche(?) that I thought was a little sandwich, and Starr had the Veggie Burger (which wasn’t that good).  I could never go out of my way for Autour Du Monde (not like 12 Chairs), but I would like it to stay in business, if, for nothing else, it keeps yet another hairdresser out of that neigborhood.

 I guess I ate more than enough this Thanksgiving weekend.  What more could I ask for than a country that allows me to eat so many different flavors in just a few days.  Did I mention I went to Dinosaur BBQ too?

Monkeys, Chickens, and Herbs

I watched Raiders Of The Lost Ark last night -A shitty, Chinese bootleg copy that I threw out this morning. That movie still has one of the best endings ever. It got me thinking about whether to go see the new flick, Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Crystal Skull (I’m skeptical of the Crystal Skull part –A gold monkey maybe, but a Crystal Skull? Who would believe that?)

So far the reviews have been pro and con. Some say it’s good to see Indiana back in action, and that the humor is there that made the first three so much fun. While others say the film shouldn’t have been made. As long as people say it’s not terrible, then I’ll probably go see it. I don’t understand how it could be so bad if it’s Steven Spielberg directing. He’s like the pizza of directors! Seriously though, the guy is pretty much a genius when it comes to making entertaining films for America. I don’t think he can make an absolutely terrible movie. Some may be less enjoyable than others, but they’re never completely unwatchable.

It’s just great that he fights the Nazis in all these movies. I didn’t see the Temple of doom, but I’m sure that it was missing the Nazis. Nothing is better than watching a guy in a cowboy hat and a whip, clad in leather, spanking those stupid Nazis. Who’s your daddy? INDIANA!!!

We cooked last night as well, making chicken over rice with some beans on the side. Pretty easy to make and really delicious (just remember to mix the rice or it may stick to the bottom of the pot). We threw garlic and onion into some olive oil for the chicken and it added some really good flavors. Jeff basically took over after the first ten minutes and it really came together nicely. The brown rice we made was Near East brand and was great with the beans on the side (black beans, but no gas today). Basically we had to have the chicken because it was defrosted and I asked a few people at work the best way to defrost and they said definitely either in the fridge, or leaving it out, but try to stay away from the microwave because it can cook it alittle or it may defrost it unevenly etc. One other thing you can do is soak the chicken in a bag in some cold water, but this won’t defrost it –it’ll just sorta speed the process up.

I also started an herb garden at work today. It’s not much (I just put the florescent light up) and it’ll take a little time, but so far everything is going as planned. It’s under my desk and I’ve only got one Sweet Basil plant, but I hope to get lots more. There are two pictures I will insert later. I will keep you guys updated with it’s progress.

Apple Picking

On the very same note left for me with the Pile of 8, was another one-word message scribbled into the corner that made me laugh…”APPLES!”

On that morning I went apple-picking with my family -that is, my mom, sisters and their husbands, my niece and nephew, and their nannies (the nannies are sisters too) and their family (one brought her husband and daughter, the other isn’t married). We’d done this the previous year, and despite it being 80 degrees outside, we did it again this year, making it sort of a Fall tradition.

If you haven’t been apple picking in a while, go right away! It’s alotta fun, especially with little kids or with family. This can be surprising, since it sounds like a cheesy activity, but you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I was surprised at how much fun I had again this year even after I remembered it being a good time a year ago.

We headed up to Davies Farm on Rt. 304 in Congers, NY. It was pretty packed, but still manageable and they run a good operation. The farmhouse is really pretty and the whole scene is picturesque, so bring a camera. In the backdrop is the water (Rockland County reservoir) and matched with the rolling hills and the nice fall weather, it’s really hard to beat this slice of Americana. I guess I’m just a sucker for this stuff.

Be sure to get an apple picking pole (a what?!) while you’re there cause the best apples will be out of your reach. You’ll be spoiled and won’t want to eat the apples off the ground even though this is probably what we’re eating all year round. The apples are so damn delicious that you’ll tell yourself that you’re gonna start eating healthier. My favorite part is eating apple after apple while picking and then throwing them into the woods, finished or not -theres so many!

Some interesting notes…

-Apple trees are not attractive trees.

-A bag costs $24 bucks and you fill it as much as you can. We stuff extra apples in our pockets and in the baby carriage, but they’re not dumb there and they’ve seen it all before (damn city-slickers), so just be humble cause you’re not outsmarting them.

-Though this isn’t gawker, there was, not one, but two minor celebrity sightings that day: Max Casella aka Vinnie Delpino from Doogie Howser (and The Sopranos (the former being the more superior)), and Cynthia Nixon aka Miranda from Sex and the City.

-We ate dinner at Ricks Club American just around the corner from the farm. This place is very good and their ribs are great so stop by there if you can. (This is a good alternative to McDonalds as well)

-“APPLES” was the note left for me by my roommate, a lover of apples and one witty son of a bitch.