November 6: Nano Haiku (Soup, 2012)

[thistlechaser]

Cooking chicken soup
Much harder than it should be
Second time: failure

Blah. Blah, I say! I'm not sure how chicken-in-stock can come out to be 'not soup', but somehow mine did. I'm not sure what makes soup soup, but 'meat and veggies in broth' doesn't always seem to make soup. Or at least, not good soup.

I didn't buy garlic because I had an open container of minced, an unopened container, and a vacuum-packed "fresh" pack of it. Somehow all three of them went bad, so I didn't have garlic for it. tersa had suggested thyme, which I had been certain I had, but I was wrong.

So the soup had chicken (breasts and drumsticks), a whole container of stock (store-bought), sauteed onions, and carrots. After six or so hours of cooking, I tasted it and added salt and garlic powder.

I think I give up on soup! I have some chicken breasts left, so next weekend I'll try something else.

--

I watched the movie 2012. The summer blockbuster about the world ending. It was an outstanding special effects movie, but a really bad movie. Stupid characters. The effects must have been something to watch on the big screen, but stupid characters acting stupid really take away a lot of the enjoyment. (Yes, after the entire world agrees to a plan, they ALL change it based on one character making a speech. ARG! *rips hair out*)

Comments

[ani-mama.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. Another failure with chicken soup? That is too bad.

I got 2012 at the bargain bin at Wally World a while back. The characters are all incredibly annoying, and the special effects were cool but just so over the top it was stupid. I am glad I did not pay full price to watch that in the movie theater.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

The whole movie was really over the top, but the characters especially. It's hard to enjoy a story when you don't like a single character!

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of confused. Why do you try to wing things when it comes to making food? I think your continued failures are due to a lack of experience that you're not getting because rather than following recipes, you just throw things together. I think you'd be far more likely to have success by going to a site like recipezaar.com (Edit: Looks like they're now food.com, though the site seems to have the same sort of functionality), find a simple recipe with high reviews, and follow it. I have a lot more cooking experience than you and just throwing stuff together like you do often doesn't work for me and I have some idea of what spices and such work well together.

I know you're picky, but there are thousands if not millions of recipes out there that have been tried and perfected. The internet is brilliant for this, because while there are plenty of recipes in recipe books that turn out to suck, you can read comments about the recipes online and see what has and hasn't worked for people. I can't think of a single dud I've had by taking a recipe from a site with reviews that has ingredients that I like and just going with the directions. You can find stuff that will work for you. Stop trying to re-invent the wheel!

[ani-mama.livejournal.com]

Getting a recipe from a site with reviews is an excellent idea. It is hard to see what would work well among the gazillions of recipes online, especially if you are not familiar with cooking.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I think I'll try that next weekend!

[lokyst.livejournal.com]

Some additional tips when doing this. Go for highly reviewed recipes with 30+ votes. Also while you're learning the ropes, choose recipes with "Simple" in the title ;)

I've had some luck with allrecipes.com as well.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ha! I like the "simple in title" idea! :D

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Good point! I did try doing that at first, but even when I followed the directions I didn't get good results, I think that's why I started just doing my own thing. Since that fails even worse, I think I'll go back to trying that!

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

I'm all fairness about changing the plan, the plan was also to have that other ark that got damaged and there was a bunch of people who were, basically, going to die because of it. So, it's like the original plan was so that something like that wouldn't have to happen. I give them a little slack on that.

Speaking of movies! I just finished watching Toy Story 3. Now, I had to justify to my boss why I would be watching it, I reminded him that I was 6 when the first one came out, and I'm a bit older then Andy is but, pretty close. I think it was an awesome movie! On one hand it's good for kids and such but on the other hand there are so many culture references and some really dark parts for the older people.

Also, without spoilers on the end; now, I don't cry much at all, I mean, the last time I remember crying was like 4 years ago. I cried at the end of Toy Story 3. Not like my eyes teared up, right out cried. That was such a great ending...

I didn't much care for the 2nd one. I mean, it was decent but it didn't really feel all that special. They nailed the 3rd one. I loved this movie.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've seen the second, let alone the third one... I'll have to!

Problem is, while the arks apparently had the space, what about other resources? Food, water, places for waste (did they have an opening to just toss it out of?), air?

People aren't generally that giving when it might cost their own lives to do so. :/

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

Well, I would imagine waste is either incinerated or just dumped into the ocean (honestly the world is fucking ending, I don't think being environmentally friendly is high on the list).

As for space the one guy did talk about how the rooms were big enough to fit like 4 or 5 people in so I don't think space would have been too much of an issue. I mean sure, it wouldn't be creature comforts but you'd survive.

Food/water (although I'd imagine they might have a system to collect rain water to help keep the amount high) is probably the only real sticking point I can think of. But I mean, they did have all those animals so if they needed to they could have eaten those.

Ya, it's not the best idea to play fast and loose with plans like that and in real life I would imagine the military would have a huge role in something like that and would just pacify anyone who endangered the mission and the lives they are supposed to protect like that.

As for Toy Story 2 you could probably skip it if you wanted. I mean, all you'd really miss is some character development and the introduction of 3 new characters that follow over to the 3rd movie. But might as well watch it I guess.

[gconnor.livejournal.com]

I wonder if you had actual stock or broth to start with? Broth is pretty much chicken-flavored water with some salt. Stock typically has a lot more of the connective tissues of the meat cooked in, like collagen and gelatin, that you usually only get from cooking meat with bones in it, for a long time. A stock is often heartier and will start to congeal if you put it in the fridge, like a slightly watery Jell-o.

I don't think it makes too much difference if your soup has a lot going on already... like some sort of starch or other thickener, perhaps.

Alton Brown had a good soup episode on Good Eats... if I remember right it was billed as a "cook with your kids" theme. Plus there were separate shows for both broth (beef) and stock (chicken). Also, he made a chicken stew to be used as a pie filling in the "pocket pies" episode... I really liked that one for both pot pie and normal stew... it was basically chicken broth, milk, flour, butter, chicken, and frozen mixed veggies. Oh and there was one for french onion soup using an electric skillet (have not made that one but I want to)

I get the impression that aromatics are important too... the most typical aromatics are celery and onions, which want to be diced, tossed with a little salt and oil, and then sweated in a skillet on medium for like 10-15 min... you want the onions to start to turn clear. If you're using fresh carrots this is a good time to get them in as well so they can get a headstart on cooking. I got a veggie slicer of the not-quite-mandoline type that works great for onions, celery and carrots.

I went on a soup kick some time back... making a really big soup every weekend for a couple months or so, then using it for lunches or along with dinner. Typically I would have: broth, veggies, aromatics, starch, spices. For me "veggies" are almost always frozen mixed vegetables... for a little more "toasty" flavor you can put them on a cookie sheet and bake them for a while.

In the starch group could be noodles, potatoes, barley, rice... timing is important on when the starch gets added so that it is cooked but not falling apart... when in doubt you can also cook the starch on its own until it is the right texture, then add it to the soup at the end. Tortillas can also be good in soup, and even tortilla chips (though watch the salt levels with that one). For potatoes, there's a certain kind of frozen diced potatoes I like, I think it's marketed as a breakfast-style potatoes... I just put a handful or so from the freezer into the soup in the last 10 min or so.

There are other kinds of thickeners, if you like the soup to be thick. Corn starch works, though don't forget to completely dissolve it in a small amount of *cold* water first, or it will just turn into a lump and not be worked into the soup. A "roux" is another type of thickener, which uses flour rather than corn starch... the flour gets cooked in butter first, until it starts to brown a little, then goes into the soup (you could just throw flour directly in but it has a kind of raw cereal taste in that case) You can also thicken with eggs (egg drop and greek avgolemono soup use this trick) Another trick to thicken a soup is to take out a small bit of soup, run it through the blender to puree, and then add it back to the soup. Bread can also work as an emergency thickener, if you simmer it long enough to fall apart and disappear. Various thickeners have their different properties... some of them don't like to have the soup brought back to a boil, and some you have to do so to get them to work... so read instructions or find a recipe that uses them to get an idea of the possible application and how it might work.

I don't think of tomatoes as a thickener, but they do make it taste more stew-like and hearty, I think. Can of diced tomatoes would work here.

Beans, lentils, split peas make good soups but these are more of an advanced category and I'm not real comfortable "winging it" there... same with squash, or any "cream" type of soup... probably better to work from a recipe there.

A lot of soups were kind of "meh" the first day and then really great after being in the fridge a couple days and heating back up again.

Good luck! keep experimenting!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I wonder if you had actual stock or broth to start with?

It was stock (in a box, store-bought), but with as little flavor as the soup came out with, I'm betting that was a big part of the issue. Probably the brand wasn't a good one.

Thanks for the info! Sounds like you have a ton of experience with this!