Hodge podge - Jacque style

Soo I'm a big believer in using the left overs...no matter what they are!  I came home from work a little bit early one afternoon this week and even though I had a work party to go to and wouldn't be eating dinner at the house. I was sick of opening the fridge and seeing lots and lots of food! (now see, this is twisted thinking because generally that's a good thing.)  But I like to USE the food in the fridge ya know?  So I made a hodge podge soup - that was based off of Giada's lemon chicken soup in the sense that it had lemon and chicken and was soup...but that's where I went off on my own.

I started out with 6 cups of  chicken broth (low-sodium would be preferable, but we didn't have it) and the juice of like 2 - 3 lemons...I think i just kept adding it till I could smell something besides chicken stock.  Then a bay leaf - because it was soup and I know there are certain logistics to these things.

The left-overs in the fridge were mostly lots of carrots, celery and onions (not really sure why there was such an abundance - but I'll take it!)  So I chopped up half a large yellow onion (tears streaming of course), a bunch of little snack size carrots, and whatever was in the little snack bag of celery :)  (see picture below)

Ok lets be honest... I did remember that my dad would be having some of this so I left a few of the celery sticks out just to feel better about it.  You know, because crunchy stuff is bad :)

Dump it in!  Let them tenderize - about 6-8 minutes

Now the chicken - cheap style.  Those cans of chicken my mom buys for food storage?  Yup, the laziest and quickest chicken in town.  Sooo all you gotta do is drain that delicious stuff, shred it a little with a dinner fork, and season it however the heck ya want.  Mine received some paprika, salt, and pepper.  I kept it simple - this was hodge podge soup of course...fanciness not allowed! 

Dump it in!  Just heat it through a little. 

I'm hugely addicted to pasta and Giada had some in her soup - so I went to the pantry for the box of spaghetti I knew was open but never going to be used because of it's small portion left over (I may or may not have a habit of organizing the pantry when I need a stress-reliever.  Don't judge.)  About two cups of whatever pasta you want - I like the spaghetti type - Savannah said butterfly woulda been better.  Whatever!

And voila!  You put a lid over it and be on your merry way!  Then all the people who trickle in at different times during the night can go to the pot, load up on dinner, and retreat into their respected rooms to continue workin' on whatever they're busy with!

This was about 5 servings of soup
It got good reviews from the family too!  Even dad liked the flavor :)

Study material

Once upon a time, a sweet and loving mother wanted so greatly for her daughter to start cooking more.  Either because she was tired of doing it for her after 20 years, or because she saw great potential in the young woman!  (I'm sure it was the latter.)  But how?  How would she convince this content-with-how-her-life-was-already-going girl that she could develop a talent appreciated by all?  For the Christmas and birthday events following this great conundrum, this sweet and loving mother slyly gifted her daughter with a an assortment of cookbooks, one which was equipped with basically every piece of knowledge needed regarding basic foods, how they work, and what instruments are best to use on them.  :side note - I would suggest this basic cooking material to anyone wanting to know exactly how the food you use works! Genius idea mom!: 

My mom is a genius and knowing how my brain functions, found me a cookbook that explained in detail how each food functioned when placed on heat, which ones were optimal regarding there chemical makeup, and even contained basic how-to pages on how to cut different kinds of meat.  Anyone wanting to really understand what they're doing as they start to cook, should look into a book like this:

Then came my real passion: Italian!  Ooohhh boy how I love Italian food.  And my favorite?  Giada.  Classy dishes with gorgeous presentation.  This is what I love to cook out of whenever I'm feeling fancy!

So many dishes that you will see on this blog come straight from, or are developed from concepts taught in these great books!  They make great Christmas gifts, btw :)

Here goes nothin'

Well, I guess I finally have given in.  I didn't plan on starting a blog by any means.  I was to the point of frustration with trying to create a collection of recipes (I don't call it a cookbook because I don't think I'm that far along in my cooking career...if that's what you want to call it) when my sister in law, Jenny, side commented, "Why don't you just start a blog, don't worry about who reads it, and then make it into a book after you have enough content?" GENIUS!  What would I do without that girl?  Besides getting food poisoning at her birthday dinner...She makes my life so eventful! 

So the point of this blog is not to see how many readers I can get, how many people comment, or how popular I can or can not feel from such a thing, it will simply be a creative outlet to record any ground-breaking discoveries I may someday stumble upon (laugh with me here, ok?) And along the way, I may insert some new recipes in life as well.