Kitty: Monday in the Kitchen at Knitbuddies

Chicken Beef Noodle Soup 1 large Organic Fryer Chicken 6 cans of Organic low sodium beef broth 8 whole slices of Ginger 1/4 cup of Ju Ju Berries (approximate) 1/3 cup of Star of Anise (approximate) 2 teaspoons of Salt (approximate) 1 1/2 teaspoon of MSG (approximate) 1) Place chicken and beef broth in a large cooking pot 2) Check your level of liquid. You want the chicken to just barely be above the liquid line, if it is below add water to bring it up to this level. 3) Add 8 slices of ginger 4) Bring the soup to a rolling boil and then turn to low to cook for 2 hours. 5) After it has cooked for 2 hours add; Ju Ju Berries, Star of Anise, salt and MSG to the pot. (M. and I like a very heavy taste to our foods.) 6) Cover the pot and allow to cook for 1.5 - 2 hours on low Serve over Chinese flat noodles and garnish with green onions.

Inspiration M and I were at the local Japanese Bookstore when we ran across a magazine highlighting the best places to eat and stay in Taiwan for 2006. M was surprised at how many of the restaurant he remembered going to when he was a child. He was also shocked that so many of them were still around and had really cleaned up their appearance. (He hasn't been back for 19 years, so yes things do change.) The pictures of plates after plates of food really made him homesick for Taiwanese cooking. So our Sunday big pot cooking had to reflect this feeling. One of the restaurants in Taipei showed a picture of this beef and chicken noodle soup that he remembered eating as a kid. After it was finished, he went wow I haven't had this in so long, so I view it as a sucess.

(The portion up above was M's bowl with lots of chicken skin. Mine was a tiny piece of chicken, 1/2 cup of noodles, and borth.)

So why the posting about food on Monday, you might be asking yourself as you read this blog. Heck this is a knitting blog and why is there a chicken on the site. One of my New Years resolutions is to force myself to cook more at home and to get serious about loosing weight. One of the keys is that I just eat out too much due to convince. Not that I am eating fast food or bad food when I go out per say, but the fact my husband I work such crazy hours that eating out is easy and faster than cooking a meal at home. This really needs to stop some how. I am also very very guilty of skipping meals all together. Some days I am lucky to eat a meal at midnight and that is the first meal of the day for me. I am also not a snacker except when I am cooking and then anything is fair game. So keeping carrots around while cooking is also a good start.

So to keep myself honest about eating at home I decided to start posting a recipe each Monday with pictures that I actually cooked it. I really hope this will be the incentive I need to get myself going again on living a healthier life style. :) Living a healthier life is really my number one New Years resolution for the year. I am too young to be feeling as crappy as I do on a daily bases and I am not getting any younger. So here is to my new start.

So Knitbuddies will have a new in the kitchen post on Mondays and if there isn't a recipe on Monday you know I have been bad.