Vyxxan's Virtual Venture

For the sick boyfriend. Ron has not been feeling good since last Thursday.

It’s maybe a cold, maybe the flu, he felt like he was running a fever. I felt so lousy yesterday and nose stuffing up that I started right in on Zicam. I have the stuff they took off the shelves… the nasal swabs. So far, so good… my symptoms have pretty much gone away. I don’t remember why they quit selling the nasal swabs, but I decided that I’d risk it.

Sick people need chicken soup, so yesterday I went and got a chicken and some veggies and boiled it all up until the chicken started falling apart. Cooled it, fridged it, and let it sit overnight.

Today it’s spooning the fat off, deboning and removing gunky stuff from the chicken. And straining the carrots, celery, onion and garlic out. Sometimes I put more (fresh) veggies back in, not doing that this time.

The cats are having a feast… I put about 1/2 of the chicken into the freezer, but the cats got all the skin, fat, gristle, and bones. And the carrots. :)

Had to add water to the broth, it was a large chicken and a lot of veggies to boil up with it for flavor. Put in a couple boullion cubes to make up for that… and was happy I rarely use salt while food is cooking. I also put in a few drops of yellow food coloring, which I normally don’t do. I don’t care if it’s as yellow as canned soup…. and I’m not into boiling up chicken feet for the color, either. (not that I shop anywhere that they even SELL chicken feet!) Another option is tumeric, but didn’t see any in the cupboard, so I went with the food color.

Right now matzo balls are boiling in the soup… and the matzo ball mix I used made soooo many matzo balls that I’m having to boil up another pot of water to cook them all. This was a different brand of matzo meal that I usually find, normally I have to make 2 batches of matzo balls because 1 isn’t enough. Instructions were different, too… Usually I mix, form the balls, and then chill for an hour. This recipe said to mix, chill, then form the balls… and that’s what I did, as the mixture was too runny at first to do anything with!

Manhattan style matzo balls is what it says on the recipe on the box. I wouldn’t know the difference, myself… being from California and having San Francisco style matzo balls, lol! Solomons Deli, wonderful place. No idea if they are still open….

Anyhow. I don’t normally cook Matzo Ball Soup in the fall… to me it’s a Springtime food. I normally put all kinds of root veggies into the pot while boiling up the chicken, too… and this time it was slim pickings at the grocery store. No parsnips, no turnips, no rutabagas. I did see rutabagas today at WM, but turnips were only sold in a bag… and they had no parsnips either. Hmm. I don’t want those things in my finished soup… but I do like them in the cooking of the broth.

Well, the results are in. 30 min has gone by since I dropped the matzo balls into the boiling soup. It looks like someone opened the lid, but I know that no one has. AUGH! Hard lumpy matzo balls instead of light fluffy matzo balls. Another few min until the ones boiled in plain water will be done… I am going to be very unhappy if those also look like hard lumps.

Here is a picture of what I got with the ones boiled in the soup….

As you can see, my soup isn’t yellow… and I didn’t get all the fat off of it, either!

See how small those matzo balls look? They are only a bit bigger than they started out, not light and fluffy and doubled in size like normal. I don’t think I care for Manhattan style matzo balls! They are plenty cooked, but a bit dense in the middle… more like matzo balls that have had the lid opened partway thru the cooking time. It’s like dumplings. (which matzo balls are) If you open the lid during the cooking time, they collapse back on themselves and turn into hard doughy lumps. Phooey!

I’ve had this happen ONCE before… and it was because I peeked and let the steam out. The plain water boiled are the same, only with even less flavor. They are in the soup now, soaking it up. Which ain’t gonna be much when they are hard doughy lumps.

But the broth is excellent, so all is not lost… I may fish all those matzo balls out and try again with a different recipe… a recipe like I’m used to.

hugs,
Vyx

and I suddenly realize… hmm, I don’t have a cooking category. That’s okay, this isn’t a cooking blog.

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