Chicken Soup

Chicken soup = self-reliance. The last time I was sick, I whined and whined about how I didn't have anything to eat and I didn't want to go to the store and I was too achy to get dressed and I was huuu-uuungry. I wanted chicken soup.

In the pits of self-pity, with a recipe from who-knows-where, I made chicken soup from scratch using two chicken breasts with thigh meat and skins (obviously, I managed to get to the store). I ate tons, froze the rest, and thought Voila! This is how single people do it. [In fact, I do not believe this is true; I believe that single people merely whine to their friends.]

Chicken soup = Someone Loves Me.

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
  
• 2 split chicken breasts with thigh meat and skin (mine have bones in them, still)
• 1 small onion, diced
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 stalks of celery, chopped coarsely
  
• Couple of carrots, chopped coarsely
• Salt & Pepper
• "Stuff" -- I like tomatoes, squash, and a bit of lime in my soup

Heat olive oil over medium heat in a large stock pot, then cook onions (and garlic and celery) until translucent. Season chicken with salt, pepper (and garlic powder, if you didn't use garlic cloves), then place skin side down and brown, about 10 minutes. Cover with water and add carrots. Bring to simmer, then cook for one hour, until chicken is tender when mushed with a fork.

Add stuff.

Linguine w/ Bacon and Peas in Cream Sauce

As innocuous as this first seemed, the more I cooked, the more I thought of Monte's, that perfect little basement Italian ristorante in the Village. This is somewhere between the ham and peas pasta there, and a recipe I adapted from Emeril's.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• Butter
• Heavy cream
• Onions
• Garlic
• Bacon, ham, proscuitto
• Peas, frozen
• Red pepper flakes (black pepper works too)

Start the water boiling for the pasta.

Add enough olive oil to cover about a third of the bottom of a medium saucepan over medium heat, then melt a tablespoon of butter. When everything is melted together, cook finely diced onions until they're translucent (a couple of minutes). Add a couple of cloves of garlic, simmer a about a minute. If you're using bacon, cook the bacon seperately until it's almost crispy, then throw in the saucepan. If you're using ham, throw it in now (dice it first, obviously). Add about a quarter glass of wine, and let simmer for about 3 minutes until the alcohol cooks out.

Add pasta to boiling water.

Throw in the cream (about 4 ounces, depending on how heavy you want it to be), peas, salt and pepper. Let cook down to half the volume, until it starts to thicken. Add grated parmesan cheese at the very end, then spoon over pasta.

Next time, I wouldn't add the onions, and I'd suck it up and throw in all the cream. Plus, it'll need a bit of salt at the end, even if you use unsalted butter.

Serves - about 3 people.

Cost: Cream ($3), Peas ($1.50), Wine (depends on how much you drink), Butter ($0.25), Bacon or ham ($2) = ~$7.00

Linguine w/ White Clam Sauce

The restaurant across the street from my apartment, Quartino's, makes phenomenal linguine with white clam sauce -- sometimes. When it's good, it's just oily enough and you occasionally get a bit of spice in the sliced red peppers they throw in. When it's not, it can be too dry or too soupy, and you don't get the bit of spice or cleanse of parsley.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• Garlic cloves - couple
• Clams, minced
• White wine
• Red pepper flakes or sliced cayenne peppers
  
• Linguine
• Parsley (if you have it)

In saucepan on medium-high heat, add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Smush garlic and cook until tender (be ready to act fast, as garlic will start to burn pretty quickly). Stir in clam juice, white wine, parsley. Simmer 10 minutes. If you add the red pepper before you simmer, the sauce gets spicy quickly. Might consider just sprinking a few flakes on the pasta at the end.

A word of caution: the sauce may need salt, but remember that clams are salty, so don't salt until the end.

Cook linguine until al dente. Add cooked linguine and chopped clams to saucepan, cooking until clams are heated through.

Serves: about 2 people (I saved about a bowlful for lunch tomorrow)
Cost: Clams ($2), Linguine ($2), Olive Oil ($1 - I buy the big jug), White Wine (depends on how much you drink while cooking) = ~$5

Garlic Tomato Soup w/ Poached Egg

This is my favorite comfort meal, which I'll admit I've never shared with anyone else -- the perfect I'm-home-alone-and-I'll-eat-only-this-if-I-want. I got the idea from an article in the New York Times by Julie Powell, but she didn't use tomatoes and she strained the garlic, leaving only broth. By the way, I also got a rocking recipe for cooking whole okra pods that I'll post in a second.

The combination of the egg in the tomato broth sounded pretty disgusting, but was surprisingly good.

Ingredients:

• Couple of ripe tomatoes, diced
  
• Quarter of an onion, diced
• Couple of cloves of garlic, smushed
• A bit of oil, any kind
• An egg or two
  

In a small saucepan, heat oil, then throw in onions and garlic, cooking until the onions are translucent and the garlic has begun to brown. Add the diced tomatoes, waiting a second for them to get a bit brown on the edges. Cover with water (twice as much water as covers the "stuff"), add salt, and simmer for about 20 minutes... until the soup tastes like soup, and not like water with tomatoes floating in it.

Bring the soup up to a boil, and drop in an egg or two, waiting 3 - 4 minutes for them to poach. Remove egg into soup bowl, and ladle soup over. Remember, eggs will continue to cook for a minute or two.

Sprinkle with pepper and a bit more salt, or parsley if you have it on hand, and eat.

Serves: Probably 3 or 4 people, a couple of eggs per person. I eat until I'm stuffed, and still have enough broth left for another meal or two. Honestly, I stick the saucepan in the fridge, and just bring it to a boil and drop another egg in the next day.

Cost: Tomatoes ($1), Onion ($.50), Eggs ($.25) = ~$2.00

Marisa Cooks!

A year ago, nobody, including myself, would have believed that I'd be giving out recipes and making suggestions to people on how to make "easy!" sauces, soups, stews, side dishes. Granted, I'm no Julia Child (or even Julie Powell), but I certainly like to eat what I make, and so have the folks that have partaken of my simple results.

Therefore, with very little (read: no) fanfare, I launch this blog: a place to track the basic recipes I've distilled from cross-referencing others' recipes.

A word of caution: pretty much every recipe starts with oil, garlic, and onion, and eventually includes tomatoes.

Eat well.