Less Haut Couture, more Haut Cuisine

So as much as I would love this to be a fashion blog, I think my area of expertise inclines me more to comment on the contents of the kitchen than the couturier's closet. Sorry, no more bad alliteration.

I have been cooking up a storm the past two days. It is such a catharsis. I don't know if the release is in the cooking, or the devouring your own creation in some weird God-complex way, but either way, I enjoy it.

First off, I fulfilled my part of the throwdown challenge: Cauliflower Cheese Soup.

I followed my plan pretty exactly, and I am pretty pleased about the outcome. I would probably cut some of the dill - each bowl is reminiscent of mowing into a bag of Old Dutch, what with potato supplying the other main ingredient of the soup. Also, after a phone call with my parents (my father just realized he can send texts with his blackberry - sweet Lord...) I removed the buckets of soup that had been on the brink of hibernating in my freezer for the next month. Alert - cheese soups do not freeze well. The cheese separated upon defrosting and becomes very unappealing, according to madre Black. So, perhaps in future I wouldn't, in fact, make such an ample pot.

so much dill!

So much soup wouldn't probably be a problem if a) it wasn't mostly potatoes and cheese and I need to be in a bikini next weekend and b) if I didn't, the next day, try out a slow cooker chicken stew recipe.

Yule and I had planned a movie night and, knowing that she had inherited the cold I'd had the past couple weeks, I thought chicken stew would be the comfort food par excellence. That said, I've never found a good chicken stew recipe - I've always just done guess work, and while it always turns out delicious, I thought I would turn to the world wide web (yes, that is what www stands for, remember?) for some advising.

The comments I followed made the recipe so different that I may as well just copy for you the recipe here rather than direct you to allrecipes (my mom loves epicurious.com - I think allrecipes is the recipe website of the proletariat, and only in this am I in any way indie).

Slow Cooker Chicken Stew

Ingredients

1 white onion

1 tablespoon of oil (though I used reserved bacon fat from the cauliflower soup)

Cubed chicken breast (as much as you see fit, really)

3 cloves garlic, crushed

2 apples, peeled and cut into eigths

3 red potatoes, cubed

3 carrots, cubed

1 sweet potato

1 cup water

2 cup chicken broth

1 can condensed cream of celery soup

1 package onion gravy mix

Black pepper

Italian seasonings

Preparation

1. Sautee onions in a large skillet - I brought mine near carmelization, but to each their own

2. While onions are cooking, cube your vegetables (to which you can obviously add any you prefer, some broccoli would be a nice addition I think) and throw them in the slow cooker

3. Add cubed chicken and crushed garlic to onions and cook through

4. Mix condensed soup, water, broth and gravy mix in a seperate bowl (I did not do this, and found stirring everything together in the slow cooker somewhat difficult). Add to slow cooker

5. Add cooked chicken/onion/garlic mixture and stir everything together. Cook on low heat for 8 hours.

And voila!

It looked like chicken, but it smelled like bacon. Amazing.

 

I also think it needs salt, but don't think I have good enough judgment on that matter as to advise how much, so to each their own. But seriously, it is delicious.

Off to heat up leftovers.