Chicken Soup for the Hay Fever pt 2

A year ago, I blogged a recipe for making chicken soup whilst sick.  A year later and London's trying to kill me again. I've tried my best to push through it, but sometimes all you need is a lot of drugs and about 3 days of straight sleep. Because of this I haven't been able to go out in London and find new gems to blog about this week.

I did, however, make a roast earlier in the week and used that to make another chicken soup dish.  If you have a whole chicken on hand, you can use so many of the bits that you wouldn't eat for added flavouring in the stock.  (Don't be afraid of skin, gristle and bone!) This time, I made white rice and boiled it with spinach, mushrooms and a chicken stock cube in the water. SO good! And it's lasted me all week.

So next week I should be back to blogging about London but until then, drink Benadryl, pound the lemsips and eat some chicken soup.

Chicken vegetable soup with spinach and mushroom rice

Chicken Soup for the Hay Fever

I don't really have anything that intelligent to blog about today, but I figured if I want to get back into the habit of blogging I should do it everyday.

London weather thought it would be a great idea to bring my allergies on at full force, so my brain hasn't been function too well.  So for the past two days, I've been lain in bed, alone, putting as much anti-histamine in my system that my body will take.  Today I finally got up and made a meal later in the afternoon, the classic: Chicken Soup. I'm sure everyone has a variant on how to make it, and it's quite easy to just buy it straight from the can.  I haven't gone grocery shopping in ages, so i pretty much looked to whatever my fridge had to offer.  If you're like me, and strapped for cash, it can be useful to find that everything is right in your home. If you're home alone, knowing a meal that doesn't take much effort but also makes you feel better is nice as well!

The recipe is quite basic: chicken, water, veggies - but I figured I'd post what I put in today anyhow.

1 package of diced chicken breast (about 2 cups?)
1 white onion wedged
3 peeled and chopped carrots
2 diced cloves of garlic
1 can of sweet corn kernels
1/2 green bell pepper 
1 peeled and diced potato
1 small tomato, quartered
2 bay leaves
salt, black ground pepper, thyme, chicken cubes for added flavour

I didn't set the heat any higher than medium while cooking this.  1. the meat cooks better when it's done slowly and 2. I wanted to lay down or take a shower at the same time

Place the diced chicken, onions and salt in 2 cups of water. Cover, and let it cook until the chicken turns white. Add the garlic, green pepper, corn and tomato and carrots and 1 cup of water stir and cover. When it starts boiling add a chicken cube. If you've diced the potato earlier, place it in cold water while you wate to add this.  The potato should go in last, along with the bay leaves, black pepper and thyme. Depending on how you would like the broth to taste add another chicken cube. Stir, cover and put on simmer.  If you have some spaghetti or rice already made add that to your bowl.  Or if you don't feel like making those put in more potatoes so it can be more filling.  I added a lot of black pepper to mine, sometimes it makes my sneezy-nose or itchy throat feel better.  When's it done? When it tastes like soup. It all depends on how fast you tried to cook it.

Enjoy!! Drink lots of fluids, take lots of Benadryl and go to sleep!  That's where I'm heading now.

[UPDATED 04 June 2011] - a year later and I'm sick again.  Earlier in the week I made a roast chicken. When I got sick I cut that up and had chicken soup for days!

Added bonus to this recipe; boil some rice with spinach and mushrooms in the water. SO good!