Chicken Soup

I wasn't going to post my chicken soup recipe, I mean, after all, there's got to be like a MILLION (said with the SA accent, not the Eastern states I'm looking at you Eddie Mcguire accent...  We have Ls in SA.  You should try them sometime...) recipes online, right?
About 11,900,000 results (0.32 seconds)
Ok.  Right.
But, I mean, how many of them have chilli in it?
About 5,180,000 results (0.28 seconds) 
Pfft.  What about garlic and chilli?
About 16,000,000 results (0.27 seconds)
... wait.  Why are there more with garlic and chilli, than with just chilli?
About 2,000 results (0.52 seconds)
That's better.
Ok, but what about people who put curry in it, too?
About 784 results (0.32 seconds)
Crap.
Ok, but how many people have a cute dog that eats any vegetables that fall to the floor while making the soup?
No results found for chicken soup recipe +chilli +garlic +curry  +"cute dog eating vegetables"
Right, I win.


So, really, this recipe is all about cleaning out your fridge.  You know those vegetables that are ... well, they're getting elderly.  In their twilight days.  Not quite had it, but definitely looking to move to an assisted living facility.
And as for chicken...  Normally I use a whole free range chicken.  But in honour of the clean out, I checked my freezer yesterday, and I had two free range chicken maryland...  Perfect.
And to this I added:
1 chilli
3 cloves of garlic
2 leeks
1 carrot
1 zucchini
2 stalks of celery (including leaves at the top, they're one of the best bits)
1/2 a bunch of parsley
1/3 cauliflower
1 head of broccoli
1 red capsicum
1/4 small chinese cabbage
1C of beansprouts (those nice ones you get in Chinese cooking, not the evil skinny alfalfa sprouts)
1T (approx) of curry powder (yes all right, the amount was actually "what I had left", there was no measurement)
1L of chicken stock (because I didn't start with 1 whole chicken and making my own stock...)

So, in my majorly large saucepan (which is not my gigantic stockpot, I didn't go that far, not having a full chicken) I fried up the leeks and chilli and garlic, until the leeks were starting to separate.  I added the chicken, and fried that for a little while too, just until the skin wasn't white.  It doesn't really matter, normally I just chuck the whole chicken in water to begin with.  So yes, you can skip the frying part...

And then I added all the vegetables, chopped up of course.  (yes, you can count that as "everything else aside from bean sprouts".)  And then the stock, a bit more water because I didn't have quite enough to cover everything, and the curry powder.

Bring it to the boil, let it boil for about 30-40 mins  however long you like really.  When the meat starts to come off the chicken by itself, and the vegetables are cooked, you're good.

Pull the chicken out of the soup, and put it in a large bowl.  The next step is VERY important.
Allow it to cool a bit before trying to remove the meat.  Or you'll end up with burnt fingers, which is why I'm trying to type this with bandaids on all my fingers.

Add the meat back to the saucepan, add the beansprouts, and bring it to the boil.

Serve!

If you want to add noodles, when you add the meat back in, you can add in some noodles and boil for a bit, but I don't like noodles, so I don't.

And yes, in case you were wondering...  This soup is a spectacular remedy for colds.

Slow cooked lamb chops

I bought some chops at the markets a week ago (they've been in the freezer since!), decided to experiment.

My experiment went thusly:

2 tins of tomatoes (organic, no added anything)
1.5 zucchinis (hey, I had 1/2 left over from another recipe)
0.5 eggplant (see above note)
1.5 carrots
"some" green beans.  I don't know, they were frozen, I poured until it looked right
1 red capsicum
2 stalks of celery
3 sprigs of sprigs of rosemary (sprigs?  Is that right?  I used like 3 twigs of it, each one about 5cm long?)
3 cloves of garlic (I like garlic...)
a bay leaf, I would have used 2 if I'd had more than 1 left...
1t beef stock
6 thin lamb chops.

Chop up vegetables.  Put in to slow cooker with everything else, cook on low for 8 hours.  You could also do high for 4 hours, but as I was going to work for 8 hours, it just seemed right.

You could serve it with mashed potato, or crusty bread...  I just ate it as is, there was a bit of sauce left over at the end.

What I'd do next time: more salt.  Definitely lacking in the salt dept.
I'd probably try frying the chops for a couple of minutes each side, just to see how that went - they tasted good, but as they're not as fatty as shanks, the texture was a bit different.
I'd probably try and reduce the sauce a little at the end, but as I said, it was still nice.

So, random lamb dish achieved!

Mexican Meatball Soup

This stuff is seriously good. Not just because it's a way to get humongous amounts of sour cream in to you, but it's got all sorts of good taste sensations...

Man I love this soup!

Meatballs:

500g mince

60g grated cheese

40g breadcrumbs*

2 eggs

1 clove garlic

1 small handful of coriander, roughly chopped

2 tablespoons lime juice

3 teaspoons ground chilli (or to taste... the original recipe said 1/2 a teaspoon)

1 teaspoon ground oregano

1 teaspoon ground cumin

Soup:

Olive oil, for frying

1 onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 jar of salsa (I like the doritos hot salsa)

400g tin of tomatoes

1L beef stock

400g tin red kidney beans (I use the Coles home brand mexican beans, actually)

1 small handful of coriander

Sour cream (lashings of it!), grated cheese and corn chips to serve.

Preheat oven to about 180C.

Mix all the meatball ingredients together. Roll them in to small(ish) balls - probably a little over a tablespoon of mixture/meatball - and line them on an oven tray. If this is one you also use for cookies, line it with oven paper first, much easier to clean. In fact, line it with oven paper anyway, it's easier.

Put meatballs in oven.

Heat up frypan/oil.

Drain and rinse kidney beans (ignore this step if using mexican beans)

Fry onions until softened - about 5 minutes? Add garlic and cumin, stir for another minute. Add in salsa, tomatoes, beef stock, and kidney beans (if using mexican beans, just tip the whole tin in!).

Bring to the boil & simmer for about 15 mins.

At this point the meatballs have been in for 15-20 mins, which is perfect.

Tip in the meatballs, add in the coriander, bring it back to the boil, simmer for about 5 minutes more.

Serve with MASSIVE amounts of sour cream (unless you don't have an addiction to sour cream, in which case, serve with sane amounts..), corn chips and cheese.

It reheats really well, too.

You can try eating it for breakfast, but just one word of warning - I had this for breakfast, lunch, and dinner one day. Put me off eating it again for a whole week. Don't say you weren't warned.

*Have I mentioned garlic breadcrumbs before? If not, here it is. I love garlic bread. Adore it. And I can never eat all of it. So the leftovers go in the freezer, and when I need breadcrumbs, I just put some in the blender. Extra garlic never hurt anyone that wasn't a vampire.

Salsa and Guacamole

I thought I'd publish these recipes. We've been to a pub in Tea Tree Gully that has this most amazing steak, with texas spices and a salsa on top. I've eaten it (in the name of working it out, honest!) enough times now to have a good shot at replicating it.

Unfortunately though, most of it is measured in quantities of "enough".

It has a couple of tomatoes, chopped

1/2 a stick of celery (ok, I was just trying that this time, not bad, I'll leave it in)

a bit of red capsicum

a bit of red onion

the juice of one lime

ground cumin

half a red chilli

handful of coriander

coriander root, ground

Chop the veges finely, add in everything else, leave to sit for a while.

It goes really well with... guacamole.

2 Avocados

more red onion

1 tomato

squeeze of lemon juice.

Mash the avocados, you don't want finely mashed, some chunks are good. Chop the onion and tomato, squeeze of lemon, you're done.