Cooking With Joy: The Chicken Soup Test

Hi! Welcome to my new blog, “Cooking With Joy“. No my name isn’t Joy, its Shoshie, (I see how that could be confusing). I am very excited about this project that I am about to embark on. My goal is to cook my way through every recipe of Jamie’s new cookbook, JOY of KOSHER Fast Fresh Family Recipes.

I want to cook every recipe, even the ones that I would normally not touch with a ten foot poll. Why? You’re right, it’s not like I have nothing else to do. Like many of you, I love watching cooking shows and reading any cookbook or food magazine that I could get my hands on. Its just that I never end up making the recipes. I read them more for inspiration or to learn some new techniques. So this time will be different, this time I will actually be cooking every single recipe from the book.

I am looking forward to exploring new ways of preparing delicious, fast meals for my family.

Once I decided to do this, I got to work. I started using the cookbook like a text book, highlighting things and putting those sticky things on the pages with notes like “need a substitute for this” or “half the recipe”.

I read and reread the intro section to make sure I knew what I needed to start.
Then I was off to the supermarket, the new Evergreen supermarket in Monsey, for my first shopping excursion, list in hand. I was looking for a whole bunch of things that I would never normally buy. Sumac, Prune Butter and Tahini Paste to name a few and that excited me!

The first recipe in the book is for Chicken Soup-  how bad could that be?

I was pretty anxious to get started on my new project so maybe I didn’t read through the directions as well as I should have.

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Note for next time- READ ENTIRE RECIPE AND INSTRUCTIONS A FEW TIMES BEFORE STARTING. That may seem pretty obvious, but I was really excited!

Here are the few things I did differently:

I used 1/4 tsp of ground allspice instead of 4 whole allspice berries

I used a peppercorn medley of green, pink, black and white- because I already had it at home

I also made one major change- which made my soup not as crystal clear as it should have been. I put all the solids into “food mess saver” bags, in hopes that would alleviate the need to strain through the T-shirt, I was wrong!!!!

I boiled the soup for the directed time and gave my Hubs instructions to cool it off and put it in the fridge. Hubs later admitted to me that the soup chicken looked and smelled so good that he couldn’t help himself from eating some of it before he put it away.

I skimmed the fat off when I woke up and saw that my soup wasn’t so clear.

Crystal Clear Chicken Soup with Julienned Vegetables and Angel Hair page 25
DRESS IT DOWN: Chicken Noodle Alphabet Soup

Since for the most part I am a “Dress It Down” type of girl, I cut up some carrot and put in some whole wheat cous cous as the garnish.

Then I tasted it, WOW! The flavor was super intense, in a good way!

The bones, chicken and veggies being boiled to oblivion made the soup so rich in flavor and color!

I’m happy with the way things started, I learned a lot already and hope not to repeat the same mistakes.

From now on I will do what the recipe says (for the most part) and hope to see you next time when I try the recipes for Ktzitzot (Israeli Mini Burgers).