Eggs Away!

Egg Drop Soup

6 cups low sodium chicken broth
1 tbs soy sauce
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbs corn starch
2 green onions, chopped fine
2 eggs

Bring chicken broth to low boil, adding soy sauce, ginger, white pepper, and salt. In a separate bowl, stir corn starch and 1/4 cup of the chicken broth together, then add back to the pot. Add green onions.

In a small bowl, scramble eggs gently. Turn off heat, stir quickly in a circular motion, and immediately pour egg through the tines of a fork into the pot, stirring as needed to keep the eggs from clumping.

The above recipe is a bit of an amalgamation of various recipes I found - none of them was exactly what I wanted. We didn't have any green onions, but I'll definitely use them next time. Also we only had 2 cups of homemade chicken broth, so I added 4 cups of Trader Joe's concentrated chicken broth. With the amount of cornstarch I used, we didn't get the almost supernaturally thick soup you get for Chinese take out, but I was afraid to add more. I assume they use just a heck of a lot of cornstarch (or arrowroot?), but for all I know it could be plutonium.

I'm not a huge fan of egg drop soup, but Isaac has been wanting to make it for a long while now. We did have a couple of 'clumps-o-egg' because we had some issues with the pouring and keeping the broth moving business, but the egg wasn't overcooked, so I was pretty happy with the result.



As you can see, we had egg rolls and rice along with the soup.

Kid ratings:

Christopher Robin
Collin
Isaac	X "ten million, ten thousand, ten hundred, ten trillion, and ten"
Annette	X "ten hundred"

For desserts, we had brownies and ice cream. The recipe:

Baker's One Bowl Brownies

4 squares Baker's Unsweetened Chocolate
3/4 cups (1 1/2 sticks) butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flour
1 cup coarsely chopped nuts (optional)

Heat oven to 350 F (325 F for glass baking dish). Line 13X9-inch baking pan with foil extending over edges to form handles. Grease foil.

Microwave chocolate and butter in large microwavable bowl on HIGH 2 minutes or until butter is melted. Stir until chocolate is completely melted.

Stir sugar into chocolate mixture until well blended. Mix in eggs and vanilla until well blended. Stir in flour and nuts until barely mixed. Spread in prepared pan.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out with a few crumbs. Don't over bake. Cool in pan. Lift out of pan onto cutting board. Cut into squares.

Makes about 24 brownies

Yes, I know, not exactly fancy. Plain 'ole Baker's chocolate instead of a nice fancified Valrhona or Green and Black? Yeah, but they're *brownies*. The above is my favorite brownie recipe so far (Sorry, Alton). I believe the recipe is (c) Kraft Foods. Reproduced here for educational purposes.

Oh, and we leave out the nuts.



-RN

Soup Education

We were at a birthday party tonight so no soup. Lets have a bit of education via Wikipedia to fill the gap.

Soup is a food that is made by combining ingredients such as meat and vegetables in stock or hot/boiling water, until the flavor is extracted, forming a broth. Traditionally, soups are classified into two broad groups: clear soups and thick soups. The established French classifications of clear soups are bouillon and consommé. Thick soups are classified depending upon the type of thickening agent used: purées are vegetable soups thickened with starch; bisques are made from puréed shellfish thickened with cream; cream soups are thickened with béchamel sauce; and veloutés are thickened with eggs, butter and cream. Other ingredients commonly used to thicken soups and broths include rice, flour, and grain.

One of the first types of soups can be dated to about 6000 BC. Boiling was not a common cooking technique until the invention of waterproof containers (which probably came in the form of pouches made of clay or animal skin) about 9,000 years ago.

The word soup originates from "sop", a dish originally consisting of a soup or thick stew which was soaked up with pieces of bread. The modern meaning of sop has been limited to just the bread intended to be dipped.


Soup by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Chicken Taco Soup

We are starting out with one of our favorite soups. Just because this was already in the crockpot when I had my brilliant idea.

Chicken Taco Soup
(found at www.allrecipes.com)

1 onion, chopped
1 (16 ounce) can chili beans
1 (15 ounce) can black beans
1 (15 ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 (14 ounce) can chicken broth
2 (10 ounce) cans diced tomatoes with green chilies, undrained
1 (1.25 ounce) package taco seasoning
3 whole skinless, boneless chicken breasts
shredded Cheddar cheese (optional)
sour cream (optional)
crushed tortilla chips or pita chips (optional)

Place the onion, chili beans, black beans, corn, tomato sauce, chicken broth, and diced tomatoes in a slow cooker. Add taco seasoning, and stir to blend. Lay chicken breasts on top of the mixture, pressing down slightly until just covered by the other ingredients. Set slow cooker for low heat, cover, and cook for 5 hours.

Remove chicken breasts from the soup and shred (two forks work great). Stir the shredded chicken back into the soup, and continue cooking for 2 hours. Serve topped with shredded Cheddar cheese, a dollop of sour cream, and crushed tortilla chips, if desired.

Kid Ratings:

Christopher Robin
Collin
Isaac	X 2 million
Annette	X 2 million

Soup

The family is setting out to experience soup. We are going to have soup for dinner every night for a month. Hopefully we will find and try out many new soups, stews, chilies, and other dishes in soupy realm. We will share recipes, pictures, kid ratings, and any other aspect we think of during the course of our experiment.