Chicken Soup for a Cloudy Drizzly Day

It’s my second weekend off in a row. Yay! I woke up early, just because, and got busy with several chores I’ve put off for quite a well. I feel very accomplished today, though it would be nice to have a housekeeper, and a cook, and a gardener, oh and a personal assistant. While I’m at it, a personal hair braider would be nice too. I’m still on a self imposed “do you really need that?” budget. Will be for several months to come to make up for Brazil. It’s all good though.

Right now there is a wafting aroma of chicken light soup through the home. Ghanaian chicken light soup or some variation of that. I had harvested another basketful of tomatoes from my garden and though these are mostly cherry tomatoes I’m so over eating them raw right now so I decided to cook them.

I would have stewed them, but then opted to use up the other vegetables I harvested earlier in the week in one meal. Eggplant, habanero pepper, and sweet pepper.

 

I dug up an onion and a piece of ginger (both planted from
scraps) since I have none in the pantry and I refuse to head out to the
store. That’s the best way to stick to a budget. No temptation. I’m
just going to have to eat my pantry and refrigerator empty.

Then just for giggles I threw into the pot a couple sprigs of rosemary and basil, something I’ve never done before. I learnt from the comments on a previous post of mine that there’s a herb in Ghana called akokomesa which is a basil species and is used to cook chicken soup. I added mine at the stage of making the chicken stock. Heavenly aroma!

The rosemary was just for kicks because it was staring at me pleading for a trim too when I went out to get the basil. I might have to grill a rosemary-garlic steak this week. Meanwhile, the Swiss chard is screaming “Eat Me!” Ok ok, you will be next. Wretched garden! Making me eat my vegetables. Need to find a recipe for this green stuff. 

For now it’s dinner time! I do like how the long cooking process extracts the oils from the tough old hen. 

Will wash this down with a glass of lemongrass-mint ice “tea” ie. flavoured water. Though, there is nothing really to prevent me from making a lemongrass-mint syrup instead and having myself a little vodka cocktail is there? Hmmmm!