Food & Fires

I enjoyed pottering about the house yesterday morning.  I spent most of the morning working in the kitchen again, making chicken stock and pumpkin soup.  I'm a home cook so recipes are not precise, but they taste good.

Heres how I make my chicken stock:

• 6 chicken thighs - brown in a little olive oil
• 1 large red onion - quarter and add to pan with chicken
• a few cracks of salt and pepper

Once the chicken is nicely browned add it, the onion and the pan juices to a crockpot. Then add:

• 2 litres of boiling water
• 3 large carrots halved
• the top &leaves from one bunch of celery 
• teaspoon of Italian herbs
• salt & pepper to taste
• teaspoon of vinegar ( helps draw the marrow out of the bones)

Cook on high for 6-8 hours, cool, strain and freeze. I love the taste of this stock and often just have a bowl it as broth, particularly if I'm not well. Its great for soothing an upset tummy and getting some collagen.

Once the stock was on I made roasted pumpkin soup that I had started the day before. Heres my pumpkin soup recipe:

Add to an oven tray:

• Half a kent pumpkin cut into 2-3 inch pieces
• One large red onion cut into eights
• Tomatos - 2 - 3 regular size cut into quarters or a few handfuls of mini tomatos or a capsicum

Toss in a little olive oil

Roast in the oven till browned
Then use a large non-stick pot and add:

• A few tbspns olive oil 
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1-2 tspns curry powder depending on how hot you like it
• half a small onion chopped
• a little black pepper

Mix the herbs and oil to a paste. Once the onions have softened add a tin of beans, a litre of stock and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the roasted pumpkin/onions/tomatos and a litre of hot water. Simmer for 5-10 minutes. Once cooled a little, blend the soup. 

Tastes fantastic and you get veggies, turmeric & beans all in one meal. This made 8 serves for the freezer and a tasty lunch!

In between cooking I cleaned out the pantry, mostly just a good tidy up was needed and it  looks much better now. I was given some lovely big glass jars for free last week so I have filled two with lentils and split peas and will fill the rest after the next shop.

In the afternoon it got quite really hot (40C - 104F) and the smoke was really bad. The fires were so bad yesterday everywhere, but it was awful watching Lithgow, surrounded by fire, seeing streets we know so well and houses right near where we lived on fire, people fighting embers and evacuating - all roads out of town cut off for most of the evening. 

Overnight the heat was bad, too hot to sleep much, but it has cooled down this morning. The smoke is still very thick though - (we are about 30 mins from the fire and in no danger.) so I won't be opening any windows.

My plan for today is start cleaning DS's room as he will be home on Christmas Eve. We gradually started using his room as a bit of storage so I need to sort it out a bit before he gets here.  Then tomorrow I have one present to buy and I'll be ready for Christmas.