Ooh, thanks!! I've just now discovered the "clipping" and email features -- used that so I don't lose this. Yay! I'll try both of these this week since we have all of the ingredients and I like to keep a pot of soup in the fridge.

Thanks!

Diane

Diane,

You are so welcome.

In the heavy fire season this past winter, I would get up and check the 3 or 4 fire weather forecast sites and then decide if I "thought" there would be a major fire that day. (Often, when you're in drought and have dry, dormant vegetation, the fire weather forecasts are shockingly accurate.) If it seemed likely that there would be a big fire, I'd start a pot of beans or a pot of soup. One member of the family or another would walk into the kitchen and say "Oh, fire day, huh?" And, more likely than not, it was a fire day, so it make me look psychic. (And, even if it wasn't, I had dinner made early.)

A couple of years ago, the Marietta Police Chief's wife passed away unexpectedly while still in her mid-40s. I took a big crockpot of taco soup to the family along with all the garnish ingredients and told them that I hoped they'd eat a good meal. (Due to the totally unexpected nature of her death, they really hadn't been able to eat because they were just so tore up over it.) Bless their hearts, they loved the soup so much that they just kept raving about it at both the visitation and the funeral/burial. I was embarassed by the attention, but happy that it meant so much to them that someone made them a meal they enjoyed. Of course, they wanted the recipe and I gave it to them. Since then, I have made this soup for bereaved families several times because it is so easy to throw together quickly and most everyone really likes it.

For me, the taco soup is a quick "go to" recipe when time is short and I like the tortilla soup too, but it just takes a little longer to prepare it.

Dawn

Dawn: After you remove the chicken from the bones, you can cook the bones and skin and make chicken stock for future use. I do this a lot. (You can also use a baked chicken or turkey).

You can use a crock pot if you want to let it sit all day/all night or just throw it into a pan of water. Add in whatever veggies you want (I frequently use the ends of celery or slightly dried out baby carrots, onions), whatever I have around that needs to be used up. Simmer for an hour or more (?) I tend to use my crockpot, so I don't have times set in stone, but cook until the carcass is falling part and the veggies are tender/mushy.

I pour it all through a strainer, toss all the solids and let the broth cool and then set in the frig. The broth will gel and the fat will rise to the top. Peel off the fat, then freeze the broth.

It might sound like a lot of trouble, but it is super easy and makes fantastic broth.

I toss all the bones and veggies into the compost pile, but I imagine you can't do that out in the country :0)

I use this as an excuse not to completely strip my chicken carcasses clean like my mom used to. :) And it's a perfect way to use the parts of chicken, like the back, that might not normally get eaten.

Lisa

Just had to share this quick and yummy soup with you all. It is potato soup that is so thick an creamy it to die for. ' You will need a 32oz pkg of frozen Great Vaule Southern syle hashbrown potoatoes. one onion, 3 stalks celery, 3 or 4 sliced of bacon, heavy cream or half and half. empty forzen hashbrowns in to soup kettle barley covering with water. bring it to a boil. while waiting for it to come to a boil cut up onins and celery and add to potatoes. Allow it to boil six minutes after it come to a full boil. No longer! while potatoes are boiling fry 3 or 4 slices of bacon crumbly and break it or cut it into small pieces. after the potatoes have boiled 6 min. turn off the flame and add the bacon bits about a third of a cup of mararinne, one calf of heavy cream and salt and pepper to taste. Yummy soup and in less than 30 min.

Lisa,

Sometimes I do make and freeze soup stock. It comes in handy when you need to make a meal in a hurry too. I normally use the crockpot--actually, I have two crockpots and I want another one because they are so handy for taking meals to fires.

When I want to "boil down" tomatoes to make sauce and, at the same time, I want to be out in the garden and not standing in the kitchen stirring a pot to prevent scorching---I put the tomatoes in the crockpot and let them cook down slowly all day long on the low setting. Where would we be without our crockpots?

Actually I do throw the bones on one of the compost piles--the one that is farthest away from the house. The wild vamints seem to check that pile daily, so the bones usually get eaten before they can decompose, but that's not a big surprise is it? And, the compost pile closer to the house has had a lot of brush thrown on it in the last year, so I hardly use it at the present time because I am fairly sure some kind of beast is living under all that brush. So, I recently started another pile closer to the veggie garden. Luckily, space is not an issue here. : )

Ellen, Thanks for the potato soup recipe. I make potato soup and baked potato soup a lot, but my recipe takes longer.

Dawn

I made the soup last night -- a Frankenstein of both but followed neither, based on leftovers from a Mexican supper I'd made the night before. It was WONDERFUL! There's still most of the pot left in the fridge for today because I didn't start making it until almost bedtime. I used some tomato juice, canned corn, leftover homemade refried beans and Spanish rice, and added various seasonings to taste. Yum!

I make stock, too, each time we have any carcasses. I alsi save leftover bits of meat from various meals throughout the year, storing it in the freezer. Come winter when we crave stews, I pull those bits out and make a meat bits stock & slurry, then use that as a base for various stews. Same for the beef bones we request from the butcher when we get a steer done up. I love being cheap -- it's yummy! LOL

And I'm with you on the crockpots, too. I love my crockpot and can't wait for the rest of the house to be finished so that I can have more room and, therefore, multiple crockpots again. With this family of eight, even the largest crockpot barely has enough room.

Diane

I always cook my chicken/turkey bones a second time after removing the meat and storing it away. I keep the first broth in the fridge in quart-sized freezer containers, but I only fill each half way because I want to mix the second stock into the first before I pack it for the freezer. People are always surprised to see what nice broth you can get from just the bones, skin and gristle. Sometimes I will add water to the bones again after draining them, and stir this around. If the water starts looking like chicken stock, I'll cook the bones again. When I'm finished with the bones, they are soft and will collapse to a sort of a paste when you pinch them between your fingertips. I smush this stuff and bury it in my garden. I have to do it when the dog isn't watching though, and set something on top of it for a few days.

I love my crockpot, too! I've never looked into what it costs to run it. I also have one of those big electric roasters that I always cook my Thanksgiving turkey in (and later use it to simmer the bones for broth) and Dawn, if you want something that cooks up a huge amount, you need that! But it would be hard to carry to a fire, now that I think about it.

And I do save bits and tads of things. I don't like mixing my meats together so I will usually put them in wide-mouthed tapered pint canning jars and label them as to whether they are poultry, beef or pork. Sometimes I will make up a "tv dinner" if we have maybe one serving left of something, and put it in the freezer for later. I collect the liquids from canned vegetables and bits and pieces of veggies like tomatoes, celery, asparagus and outer cabbage leaves, in a plastic coffee jug in the freezer. When it's full I thaw it out, add add whatever I think it needs more of. Usually this is chicken or beef, some broth, and maybe a jar of canned tomatoes. A chopped onion. Add a can of mixed veggies from the store or a part of a bag of frozen. Actually I prefer the canned as it has potatoes in it. Heat all this up, add enough cornstarch to give it a nice smooth consistency. DH has a sensitive stomach so I don't spice it up. Just salt and pepper. If I'm feeding kids I add a little sugar, unless there's lots of liquid from canned corn in that batch. Yum.

Diane,

I'm glad the Frankenstein Soup turned out so well! That's just how I cook too--thinking about the basic recipe in my head and then adapting it based on what I have on hand.

Being "cheap" is yummy. It is so easy to cook from scratch much more economically than buying packaged, processed stuff.

I would think that you'd need two crockpot (or more). When I was typing the Taco Soup recipe, I was thinking that while it is plenty for our small family, it would barely feed your larger one! As the kids get older, you may have to double it to feed them all. : )

Dawn

Okay, I'm now on my fourth bowl of the stuff since I made it last night. This stuff is like crack!