Today is National Homemade Soup Day. It has nothing to do with my Twisted Tuesday recipe at all, except that it makes me think about my chicken soup disaster last night, and I thought I’d share it with you..
I thought about chicken soup all day yesterday. I decided to make a quick pot of it last night after I got home. Sometimes I like to take the easy way out, and I’ll throw some chicken stock in with a store bought rotisserie chicken, and some onions, a bay leaf or two, carrots, celery, canned tomatoes, potatoes and tubettini. Ninety-nine percent of the time it comes out fabulous. And then there’s last night’s 1% which turned out to be a total train wreck. I was totally off my game last night. It definitely was not the easy way out.
It all started out as what I believed to be a normal preparation. The soup was simmering on the stove. Michael came into the kitchen and asked what I was making for dinner. “Chicken soup” I told him. “That’s awesome” he said. And as usual, he proceeded to grab a spoon for a taste. “There’s no flavor” he told me. I tasted it. He was right. I added some salt. Still no flavor. Now, here is where it gets a little messy… I had a very small timeframe to get this soup finished and on the table, and in a panic, I threw a chunk of parmesan cheese in, which only succeeded in making a mass of burned cheese on the bottom of the pan.
Come on!! (said dramatically)..I always throw cheese in my soup. It always melts into it just fine. I realized that I still had the flame on high, and I was burning it! Seriously…Really? …and…there was still no flavor. I threw in a few spoonfuls of grated Romano. It was a little bit better… but while I was stirring it, I realized that the potatoes and carrots had disintegrated in the high heat. It was basically broth with onions, celery, a few chunks of chicken, and globules of melted cheese (that hadn’t burned to the bottom) floating around!
I was still going to try to pass it off as edible…
It didn’t work.
They were on to me…
I had Michael come in and taste it again… after he tasted it he said: “Mom, what is going on with you? I always tell my friends how awesome your soups are, but if they tasted this, they’d be like ‘dude, what’s up with your mom’s soup?’ This is really bad”.
Now, that normally would have made me feel bad, but what stuck was the fact that he tells his friends that my soups are awesome…
Luckily I had a beautiful loaf of country bread from my beloved Wegmans, and I sliced that up to go with the “flavorless, disintegrated potatoes and carrots, burned cheese on the bottom of the pan” chicken soup. Apparently I sliced the bread into what Mike called “mini loaves of bread” and “mom, you better get out of the kitchen NOW before you hurt yourself..”.
He was right, and after I skimmed the salvageable flavorless soup off of the top of the pan and served it to everyone; I walked away from the mess in the kitchen, and didn’t look back until I got up this morning, when I was ready to face the war zone to clean up the burned on cheesy mess…
Honestly? I think they ordered a pizza after I left the room!
Things just happen in the kitchen… sometimes bad….but most of the time good…
Twisted Tuesday…
I went out to dinner with my friends a couple of weeks ago, and there on the menu, were corn fritters. I really love them. But I know if I order an appetizer, then I’m not going to enjoy the entrée…so I passed. I’m still kicking myself for that, and have had them on the brain for the last few days. I’ve also had BLT’s on the brain, and I thought I’d combine the two tonight! Bacon, lettuce, and tomato on corn fritters should take care of my cravings all in one sitting!
Even Better: Corn and potato pancake BLT’s, with avocados and chipotle mayonnaise. Now that, my friends, is a beautiful thing…
Life is still good, even though I burned the soup….
Corn and Potato Pancake BLT’s
Makes 4 “Sandwiches”
Just a quick note: You really have to eat this with a fork and knife…it’s not a pick up and eat kind of BLT..
The Pancake:
3 large potatoes, grated and drained
Juice of ½ lemon
2 cups frozen corn
1 large onion, chopped
2 eggs, beaten
3 tbsp all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 ½ tsp white pepper
½ tsp black pepper
¼ tsp cayenne
¼ cup vegetable oil
Grate the potatoes, and mix them with the lemon juice. Drain them until there’s no more liquid coming from the strainer.
Stir together the potatoes, corn, onion, eggs, salt, white and black peppers in a large mixing bowl until combined.
Heat vegetable oil in large frying pan. Measure 1/2 cup potato mixture into the pan, and flatten to about ½” thick. Fry for about 5-6 minutes on each side, until golden brown. You can keep them warm in a 200 degree oven while you fry the remaining pancakes.
The Chipotle Mayonnaise:
1 cup mayonnaise
4 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
1 tbsp milk
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
The Rest of the Ingredients:
1 pound thick sliced bacon, fried crisp
2 tomatoes, thick sliced
Boston Lettuce leaves
1 avocado, sliced
Fresh Chives, chopped
Assemble the BLT:
Place one potato corn pancake on the plate, layer the bacon, tomatoes, lettuce and avocados on top, and drizzle with the chipotle sour cream. Place another pancake on top. Garnish with fresh chives.
Enjoy!