Keeping Busy

** Edited to include recipe for Asian Chicken Soup. Scroll to bottom of post please. **

Hello! It is a busy day over here! I have just finished cooking up a storm, and am now going to tackle some more Christmas gift projects.

On the stove right now I have simmering:
- Pasta Sauce (to freeze)
- Asian Chicken Soup (for dinner tonight)
- (Regular?) Chicken Soup (to freeze)

I find it so much easier to do several recipes at the same time, especially if they all have to simmer for awhile. They way I have dinner for tonight, plus at LEAST six frozen dinners for the next few weeks. Yummmmmm...

I am done one of four mini card sets I am making for some friends for Christmas. I showed a sample of the card from this set in an earlier post, but here is the finished product!

Included are eight cards and envelopes, an 'important dates' book, and a note pad, all packaged in a little silver tin I found at Solutions.

Four of the cards have a sentiment, and the other four are blank so that they can be personalized as needed.

Asian Chicken Soup

(Please note that I made this up based on an episode of Chef at Home that I watched last week.)

Ingredients:
- 2 chicken quarters (leg and thigh attached)
- 2 bunches green onions - 1 bunch cut into 2 inch pieces, 1 bunch cut into small 1/4 inch pieces
- 2 inch piece of fresh ginger sliced (1/8 inch pieces approx), leaving a piece at the end that can be grated.
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
- 6 cloves of garlic - 2 whole, 4 minced
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- salt to taste
- hot pepper flakes (to desired spice level)
- pkg pre-made chicken dumplings (unless you want to be brave and make them homemade) I used Wong Wing Oriental Dumplings - Chicken which I found in the Oriental section of my frozen food isle.

Directions:
1) In a medium pot saute saute the minced garlic in the olive and sesame oil for a few minutes.

2) Add the chicken and saute until lightly browned on each side (about 2 minutes per side)

3) Fill the pot with 8 cups of water, and allow water to simmer, taking time to skim off the foam from the chicken.

4) Once the foam is skimmed off completely, add the green onions which were cut into 2 inch pieces, the sliced ginger, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and hot pepper flakes. Allow time to simmer and reduce, to concentrate the flavours and fully cook the chicken (at least an hour).

5) When you are ready to serve the soup, remove all of the contents from the pot, setting aside the chicken to eat, and leave just the broth in the pot.

6) Add the frozen dumplings to the broth, as well as the smaller chopped green onions. Grate some fresh ginger. At this point I also tasted the broth to see if it needed additional salt, and added a few more hot pepper flakes. Allow the soup to simmer for about 5 minutes, or until the dumplings are cooked through, and then serve!


It was DELICIOUS! Even my hubby loved it!

Hope you enjoy! Please leave a comment. I love to hear from you!