Delicious Ugly Soup

(This was written immediately after dinner last night )

When I was a kid my grandparents had a ton of tchotchkes around their house. I imagine it was from living together for such a long time coupled with the fact that they had 21 grandchildren. If you do the math Father's Day, Mother's Day, Christmas, and Birthdays every year X 21 gifts = one heck of a lot of presents. Add in the fact that  we were kids with very limited funds to spend on gifts, so those presents were certainly less than stellar.

Two of my favorites were kept on their breakfast porch  One was a dunking bird with a blue feather on its head, ( You put a cup of water in front of the bird, gave it a gentle push and it kept bobbing its head in the cup)  The other was a weather stick.  It was essentially a wooden ruler with simple rules to follow to get an accurate weather report.  "Put the stick outside the window and leave for 1 minute. If it is wet, it is raining." "Put the stick outside the window, if the stick is hot  the temp will very warm".  I have no idea why this gigged me so much, but as a kid I  thought it was the funniest thing I had ever seen. I suppose there is just no accounting for taste!

The weather here has been crazy.  It was supposed to get to the mid 60's today so those idiots like me got up and dressed  for a spring like day. It is now 8 pm and the temps have just started warming a tad.  It is now almost 50 after a day of 40's with torrential rains which makes it feel much cooler, especially if you are wearing thin clothes and no socks.  Yes I am an idiot to trust you weather people who wear that meteorologist label like it means anything more than an educated guesser. If only I had a weather stick!  I would have a much better indicator of the actual weather than listening to you, James Spann!

And where exactly is this post headed, you might ask. After being cold the entire day I decided I wanted soup for dinner to warm my very cold body, but it had to be something that would taste really good, require no trip to the store and be ready quickly.  The result was some of the most unattractive soup we have ever eaten, but it was delicious beyond belief.

What's In The Freezer Chicken Soup

3/4 cup shredded chicken (because I had it in a nice little frozen labeled package)
1 boneless chicken breast, poached and chopped (had one poached breast in the freezer)
i quart bag frozen sliced summer squash (could just as easily use 3 sliced zucchini)
1/2 pound baby carrots (all I had)
1 onion chopped
1 bell pepper (I used an orange pepper because that is all I had.  Green would have looked nicer)
3 ribs celery, chopped
2 shakes dried minced garlic
1 small frozen pack of okra and tomatoes (maybe a pint?)
1 quart chicken broth
2 tablespoons dried parsley
4 bay leaves
3/4 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon marjoram
salt and pepper to taste

Put everything in a large dutch oven and cook until the vegetables are soft and it will not be so ugly. (Or do like I did and put it on expecting TheHub to be home a little earlier than he was then just forget about it and cook it until everything is mushy.)  In truth, if I had taken a little more time and cooked the veggies in a little olive oil before adding the liquid and chicken they would have retained their shape a little better and the soup would have looked nicer. But I didn't so we ate the most delicious ugly soup I have ever made.  Serve it and pass the hot sauce for people like me who need additional heat with their food. Yum! And there is enough left for me to have chicken soup for breakfast tomorrow which is a double win. (No dog food for me!)

So now we are fed and warm thanks to the soup, sweatshirt and socks.  Curse you James Spann!

And just to keep up the ugly theme