Summer Soup

In the same way we push our heavy coats to the back of the closet, come May I like to retire my huge soup pot, and use it exclusively for large batches of berry and stone fruit jam.  The warm days mean less stove and oven time, more fresh veggie time.  Yet it is now June and we still have an extra blanket on the bed, our wool jackets at the ready, and we are having chicken noodle soup for dinner. 

When it comes to a hearty soup I use the chop and toss method.  Onions, celery, and carrots taste good and feel good, so they go in the pot to dry roast before I pour in chicken broth and water.  I add the chicken and cook.  When the chicken has fully cooked, I pull it out, shred the meat and remove any skin and bone.  Put the meat back, spice, taste, spice... I think most folks have a tried and true chicken noodle soup recipe laying around.

Oh but the noodles!  Fresh pasta is so easy and so special and so delicious.  For noodle soup a nice wide egg noodle is perfect.

Combine two eggs and two egg yolks, set aside.  Place two cups of flour in a bowl or on a work surface.  Make a well in the center, add your eggs and work your flour into the egg with a fork. when the dough comes together enough to use your hands, kneed together, shape into a disk, and let rest for at least an hour.

When it is time to roll out your dough, I suggest working a quarter to a third at a time.  You can roll pasta dough by hand with a rolling pin.  I am very modern and fortunate to have a pasta roller, so I just feed it through the machine.

When you have reach your desired thickness, you can flour, fold and cut into your desired with!
Gingerly pull apart and add your pasta to your soup.  Your pasta will only take a few minuets to cook (depending on how thick it is) after three minuets I will usually check it.

Hearty and warming soup, perfect for a winter meal... or a rainy June I suppose.  I'm not complaining, I love noodle soup!  I'm just ready for river trips and tee shirts.  Until then, stay dry and warm.

BLTE

Our chickens have not been phased by the heat, they keep giving us eggs, we seem to be up to four a day! They are so beautiful too, light brown, dark red, and blue. They beg to be eaten and it is hard to resist. They are slyly incorporated into otherwise egg-free meals such as the classic BLT. Now the BLT comes with a poached egg.
During the summer heat (or rather autumn!?) it is hard to muster up the energy to cook dinner. It is hard to want to turn on the oven, or stand in the kitchen, or think about what to prepare. The standby in our house is the sandwich. Simple, satisfying, seasonal what else could you ask for in a meal?

One of our absolute favorites is the BLT. In late spring we start to crave tomatoes like nothing else (if there is one thing I wouldn't not wish anyone to eat out of season in is a tomato, they are disgusting) and our first BLT of the season is something we slow down to savor, and then usually make ourselves seconds. We are well into tomato season (but it's not over!) and still not sick of BLT's.
For dinner I cooked up some Black Pig bacon, which we cannot get enough of, and feel great about eating because they use happy hogs from the first sustainable hog operation in the United States!
I poached some eggs*, sliced some beautiful fresh tomatoes, picked some lettuce, smeared some mayo on our favorite toast, and piled it all up. Voila! Dinner!

  

For an extra indulgence I made some oven fries. Simply cut potatoes into wedges, coat with olive oil, pop in a 400 degree oven for 25 to 30 minuets until golden (check on and flip after 15 minuets).

Our meal was accompanied by a glass of sparkling wine, of course. I cant imagine a more perfect meal, everything on our plate was fresh, in season, came from withing 30 miles of our house, and was incredibly simple to prepare. PERFECTION!



*The key to poaching a perfect egg if you don't have a fancy egg poaching device, is to used just enough water (you don't need a lot just enough for the egg to float to the surface and not touch the bottom, a few inches). Add a few table spoons of vinegar to the water. The vinegar will keep the egg together, also the fresher your egg the easier it is to keep together. When the water boils crack egg into the water (some folks crack the egg into a ramekin and then slide it into the water, but I don't like to do dishes). Cook for 3 to 4 minutes and then remove with a slotted spoon.

Every Morning is a Gift

Yesterday, when feeding the chickens and filling up their water, I saw it. A perfect little egg, light brown and beautiful. I literally shrieked, "Nick, Nick, the chickens laid an egg! It's a birthday miracle!" Perhaps that was going a little overboard but I was excited.


This is our little egg sitting in the amazing chair Chelsea made.


I blew the innards out of our first one so we could save the shell, and to my delight this morning there was another beautiful brown egg waiting for me, still warm.

So Nick had it for breakfast.
It seems to me only one girl is laying right now, but it is only a matter of time before we are up to our ears in fresh beautiful eggs.