Everything but the kitchen sink

Lately it has been raining every doggone day.  I can't get outside much to get chores done and that makes me get cabin fever.  The ground is saturated and there is mud everywhere.  It is overcast and chilly and gloomy.  So what do we need?  Comfort food!  We've made gumbos a lot lately, so today we're going to make a hearty, healthy soup. 

"Everything but the kitchen sink" is an expression used to mean you've added almost anything you can think of.  That's exactly the ingredient list for our soup today since we have a plethora of fresh vegetables coming out of the garden now.  Let's get started.  First, Tricia takes one of our chickens out of the freezer and boils it for a good long time to make some rich broth and then removes the meat from the pot.

One of our cooked yard birds (8 piece cut up)

Then I put on my rubber boots and went out to the garden and picked some kale, cilantro, sugar snap peas, carrots, broccoli, turnips and green onions.  From out of the freezer, we pulled some of this past Spring's corn on the cob to add to the bounty.  Our cabbage isn't quite ready yet, but a friend blessed us with a head from his garden and we cut up half of it to contribute to the pile of produce.


FRESH!!!

Russ pitched in and started chopping up some of the last of this year's jalapeno peppers to give the soup some pop and zing.  

Watch your fingers, Russ

To the pot of broth, Tricia adds some pasta, salt and pepper and begins adding some of the ingredients and begins heating it up. 

Simmer down

While we love vegetables, we like meat as well, so we begin deboning the chicken and adding the meat to the simmering pot.  

De boning the chicken

We've added all of the chicken and chopped up all of the vegetables.  Now we'll give it a stir and turn up the heat a little.


All in

Here is what it looks like after we've stirred it.  It will cook for a bit to allow the fresh flavors to all mesh together.  You can see a couple of the ears of corn in the soup.  Just prior to serving Tricia will pull them out and cut the corn from the cob, with the thought that the cob will add some extra flavor.  

Flavorful Pot of Soup

Nothing to do now but ladle a nice, big bowl of soup and grab a spoon and enjoy it.  Tricia made some cheese toast to accompany the soup.  It is an added bonus to know that not only does it taste good, but it is good for you.


Super soup!

And we added almost everything to it, but this: 


The kitchen sink