Perfect Pirate Tuesday

or, Why It Took Five Hours to Make Lunch and How I Commandeered Dinner.

Ever since I found this recipe, I haven't been able to get it off my mind. I kept thinking about how good it would taste.

Finally I got all my ducks in a row (or should I say all my chicken legs?) and decided to make yummy chicken soup yesterday.

I started the pot of chicken and vegetables cooking, minus the onion. I had an unfortunate experience about a month ago with onions and haven't been able to look at one or buy one since.

When I got to the part about Jane's Krazy Mixed-up Salt, I started seriously debating whether or not it was worth a run to the store to get some, for the sake of recipe authenticity. Luckily, I found an approximate recipe on the internet and whipped that up instead. Suffice it to say I am really, really glad I did that. (Foreshadowing of yumminess to come.)

After the chicken had cooked and I had started on my third load of wash, I took the chicken out to cool. My kids were hungry, so we all had watermelon for lunch. And some sandwiches. I didn't have a sandwich, because the watermelon was, of course, an appetizer for my amazing soup.

When I had deboned the chicken and put the bones back in to simmer for another hour, I seriously debated the reality of eating this soup today. By now it was nearly two o'clock. Way past lunchtime in my book.

Carrying on, I chopped some summer squash, zucchini, carrots, and green onions so I would be ready when the broth was done. I totally skipped over the refrigerate-and-remove-fat-solids step. There didn't appear to be that much anyway, and I probably need a little more fat in my diet.

I strained, discarded, reheated, added, and looked blankly into my pot thinking something was seriously missing. Then I spent about twenty minutes looking for this. I searched and searched, but even though I remembered the exact title of the post, it wasn't coming up in the search function.

Then I started getting desperate and trying to remember what year I had read that in. I was working at St. Paul's. I made the recipe the next day or maybe that very day in the first apartment Jack and I lived in after we were married. Then I noticed "food" on the sidebar and gave it a try. Thank you for categorizing your posts.

Once that pot was boiling, the homemade noodles were ready. At approximately 3:30 p.m. I sat down to the most wonderful bowl of Chicken Noodle Soup that I have ever eaten.

It was at this point that I realized I had nothing even remotely appetizing for dinner. You see, many men (and I feel okay about generalizing in this case) don't believe that soup is a real meal. They would much rather have a piece of chicken, some noodles, and some cooked vegetables on the side. Something about food touching, hmmm? And I wasn't about to spend the next two hours cooking up something inferior. So I sent Jack a quick message to confirm the inevitable.

We went to Rosa's for dinner.

For second dinner, I had Chicken Noodle Soup.