The week is definitely underway, and the workload recovery from the holidays is in full force. The hardest part is the cold is slowing me down, and almost wiped out my voice completely. Yet, with numerous cups of tea and honey, I made it through all the while thinking I want soup!
Then as I walked into the parking garage it dawned on me…you don’t have any at home…you’re out of broth…you’re going to have to stop at the store – the voice in my head likes to state the obvious.
My cold-suffering test subject then called about wanting beer and if I wanted to eat more leftovers. After the thrilling steak and eggs scramble from the night before as it used up the leftover steak from the tacos (please note there was no avocado left over from that experiment – take that test subject!) The offer on the table was the last four slices of brisket…and I said soup, which was countered with pasta, and I said ok, which was then amended to refrigerated pasta. And so my grocery list mentally at hand, off into the rush hour freeway parking lot I went.
Many exciting moments of construction delays, an accident and random braking for no reason later, I reached the grocery store. Wandering many aisles because of the major mental debate of just using the spices at home versus picking up veggies, I had the pasta (moment of genius: grabbed a pack of chicken and onion stuffed tortellini to go with the broth for a chicken noodle variant), paleo friendly snacks (office experiment initiated by my team), broth and then I almost made the biggest mistake…forgetting the beer!!! Thankfully, I realized that just as I reached the checkout and headed back to grab a six-pack – crisis averted!
After unloading the food bounty, I went to work warming up my ceramic coated cast iron dutch oven, adding in some grapeseed oil and letting it warm up over medium heat. I added to it 1/2 T each of ground black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and about a sprinkle of this rosemary, lemon salt (love that blend). After letting those get fragrant (1-2 minutes tops), I poured in my low sodium chicken broth (6 cups) and let it simmer.
Meanwhile, the test subject was to my right using the iron skillet to heat up the leftover brisket (snacking distraction while waiting on the the broth to reduce and flavor to meld). I was fidgeting and decided the broth needed basil, ginger, and sage (about 2 tsp of each) and let come to a boil and stirring (because I like to stir).
Then, because I was getting hungry, I added a bit of thyme and stirred some more. After another couple of minutes of boiling, I added in the tortellini and let it cook about 8 minutes until they were plump little pillows crowded in the broth just waiting to be ladeled into my bowl.
Quick and easy without too much thinking required – perfect for a chilly night fighting a cold. Two bowls later and more tea, my voice is stronger, my test subject is napping again (my food always seems to knock that one out), and the day feels like a success! Hooray for soup!!!