"I made chicken soup, and it actually came out well!"

Sometimes I intend to blog about something I've cooked or baked, but by the time I get around to it, the chosen food item has already been consumed, so there's no picture! I do so like pairing photos with my words that I often just cancel the post! Such is the case today, except I decided to blog anyway. My mother told me to. ;)

A couple of days ago, I was talking with Mom on the phone and told her essentially the title of this post! My brother, sister and I grew up knowing that when you were just about finished with a whole chicken or turkey, you made soup with it! Muffins and "Bone soup," as Mom still calls it, was one of our favorite meals, in fact. Going into marriage, I felt confident that I could follow suit. Yet my first couple of attempts were failures. Most recently, I remember trying to make soup in the crock pot, but the carrots and celery never got soft and the noodles I added quickly turned soggy.

This week was different! When I pulled the partially eaten rotisserie chicken out of our freezer, I dumped it into the top part of the beautiful pasta pot my dad and mom-in-law gave us for Christmas. It has a mesh insert which is separate from the bottom part of the pot and made the soup-making easy-peasy! I added sprigs of fresh parsley, rosemary and thyme from our herb garden and dried sage from my mom-in-law's to the chicken. Several chopped carrots and celery stalks went into the bottom part of the pot, and it was ready to go! Once the water boiled, I let it simmer for at least an hour and then let the fragrant, newly-made chicken stock cool.

The next step was to debone the chicken. Normally, I'd pull it out of the pot with a giant fork, or perhaps dump it into a colander over a second pot, but the mesh inner-pot made the job a breeze! Good pieces of chicken went back in with the carrots and celery. Bad pieces went home (to the trash . . . "home" just sounded like it fit!).

Another thing I learned recently was that a can of diced tomatos adds a nice dimension to chicken soup, so I added one of those. I learned it from my mom-in-law who learned it from a veteran homemaker in New England. :)

I think I added some salt and pepper. I simmered it some more.

And I also boiled up some noodles separately to add to the soup as we ate it. No more soggy noodles!

Ah, it would be so much better with pictures, but such is the life of the mother of a darling five-month-old! Any soup-maker knows that you can go a lot of different directions with soup; with another recent chicken carcass, I added white beans, salsa, cheddar cheese, sauteed onion, and maybe some frozen corn? It would have been good with frozen corn. John loved it. :D But, despite the flexibility, it IS possible to mess up chicken soup, as I know too well . . .

Thoughts on Breastfeeding Now

when Gemma was about 2 months old . . . I nursed her while simultaneously eating stir-fry with chopsticks and was quite proud of myself . . . note the nursing cover to the right . . .

You might be thinking, "What more is there to say than that she loves it?" It's true; I do love it. Having to pump milk exclusively for six weeks taught me to appreciate the privilege of breastfeeding even more. But after reviewing Janet Tamaro's So That's What They're For! as a pregnant person (here and here), I thought I should give something of a follow-up now that I have a baby on the outside and have some experience of my own. It's even almost in time for Mother's Day. :)

Now for the PG part . . .

Nursing Gemma has changed how I view my body for the simple reason that I have never touched or looked at my own breasts this much before in my life. When I was exclusively pumping, I called them the "work horses."

I'm actually very glad that I wrote that post about the sexuality of breasts, because now that they're performing their other primary function about eight times a day, it's easy to forget. I can see why some moms feel comfortable nursing openly in public. We just get used to a baby needing them all the time! What's the big deal? My husband (rightly) wants to make sure that I'm discreet and use my cover. To be honest, though, if I hadn't sworn to the blogging world that I would do just that, I might have caved to doing what is easier.

Receiving blankets work for some, but not for me . . . I have to be able to see my baby . . .

Speaking of covers, it appears that my friend is no longer making them for sale. There are, of course, lots of places to get them, and some people manage completely without them, but I do not seem to be one of those people! When Gemma was three weeks old, we were at my parents' home. I was trying to nurse her using a receiving blanket for a cover, but she was having trouble latching so I ended up under the blanket, too. John decided from then on that the cover ALWAYS goes with us!

One more thing. As Christians, "we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). It's a comfort to know that tough times are for good reasons, even though we can't always see the reasons. Sometimes we get to see the reasons later on. When my arms were out of commission, I learned that I was not in control of my life, and that was good. But God graciously has already produced more good out of that trial. He wanted this little one's mother to choose life for her, and to choose a loving Christian family for her, and He wanted her to have the extra milk that Gemma didn't need.

"Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works
Which You have done;
And Your thoughts toward us
Cannot be recounted to You in order;
If I would declare and speak of them,
They are more than can be numbered."

Psalm 40:5

Last Night's Supper, Today's Lunch

"Do you like Indian food?" That was one of the first questions I asked John at the onset of our relationship. I'm not saying I wouldn't have married him if his answer had been "no," but I certainly was pleased to hear him reply, "Yeah. Chicken Tikka Masala is awesome."

I'd never had that dish before, but I ordered it at one of the Indian restaurants we later visited and discovered that he was right! You can imagine my joy to find a from-scratch recipe for it at another girl's blog.

When I was pregnant, the strongest morning-sickness trigger for me was the smell of onions, so I avoided this and many other of my favorite recipes for a while. It's like a new recipe to me again, and, oh, it is delicious!

This time, I used some of our homemade yoghurt and fresh ginger for the first time. I get my coconut milk at Trader Joe's and freeze the remainder of the can for another time. (And I do use the forbidden light coconut milk, as well as half and half instead of heavy cream.) I also double the amount of cayenne pepper because the recipe is a bit mild as-is.

We eat ours over brown jasmine rice, but one of these days I'd like to make up some of the yoghurt sauce for the top and try my hand at some naan.

Did I mention that we also have cheesecake in the house? Awesome food day!

For a Niece Who Likes Pink

The elder of our two little nieces is a girl after her auntie's own heart. When I heard that her favorite color was pink, I chose the Briar Rose pattern on the Ravelry website for her birthday sweater. And I decided Caron's Country yarn with its bit of merino mostly because it had the best colors for the project.

This poor little pullover took me far too long to knit, considering that I started in November and her birthday was in January! But there were two big reasons for the delay, one foreseen and the other quite unforeseen. I hope she forgives me.

As for the pattern itself, I'm pleased with how it turned out, but I probably would not choose it again. I modified it slightly, knitting the front and back simultaneously in the round and both sleeves in the round as well to help avoid seams. It's not completely seamless, however, since the shoulders and arms as well as the picot hem are all sewn. The little top-down tunic top I knit for her sister last fall was more fun to knit because the pattern was more streamlined.

Hope that this sweater fits her next fall! Happy Belated Birthday, dear niece!