Vegetable Soup with Chicken

I wanted to make a mushroom soup with the leftover turkey stock that was sitting in my freezer since Thanksgiving. But I couldn't get any dried mushrooms and didn't want to use only fresh ones (how are dried mushrooms a seasonal thing when you can get fresh ones all year round?).
So I improvised and came up with the following recipe.

1 onion
olive oil
chicken breast
chives, cut into small rings
salt, pepper, cumin, parsley
3 potatoes
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup chickpeas
4 cups broccoli
several stalks celery
white wine
cream
4 cups broth
8 oz of sliced white mushrooms
Cut the onion into small pieces and fry it in some olive oil in a big pot. Rub chicken breast with salt, pepper and spices and fry with the onions until done. Remove the chicken. When the chicken has cooled down a little but, cut it into small pieces. Add chives.
Cut the potatoes into small cubes and add them to the onion. Fry for a couple of minutes while stirring so that the onions don't burn. Add peas, broccoli and celery. Fry for another 5 minutes. Add some white wine and cream and the 4 cups of broth. Cook until the vegetables are done, add spices to taste. Then blend with an immersion blender.
In a frying pan fry the sliced mushrooms for a couple of minutes from both sides. Add to the chicken.
Serve the creamy soup with some of the chicken-mushroom mix and sour cream.

The result was quite tasty, but it made me realize that I need to stock up on my herbs. I only had parsley and basil and would have liked to add tarragon or rosemary.

Turkey stock, turkey yoghurt soup and crunch bars with sour cream chocolate frosting

After Thanksgiving we had a lot of left overs and I got to try out some new turkey recipes.

I was especially exited about the recipes I could make with the turkey stock.
The stock recipe I used was a mixture of this turkey stock recipe I found online and what I found in my newly acquired book "Julia's Kitchen Wisdom" by Julia Child.

My turkey stock:
I cooked the turkey carcass with carrots, celery and onions and also added a bouquet of herbs (dill, rosemary and thyme). After bringing everything to a boil I let it simmer for about 2 hours.
The stock turned out a bit cloudy so I guess I didn't skim enough in the beginning but I think that's ok.

Now, today is the day I got to make my first soup and I chose this spicy turkey yogurt soup with chickpeas, rice and mint. The recipe sounded like a Turkish yogurt soup I tasted in Berlin and I'm pretty happy the way this recipe turned out. I might make it again, I still have about 2 liters of stock in the freezer!


In other news, this week is the week we got a hand mixer! Let the baking begin!

The first "cake" I made (while waiting for the laundry) were crunch bars.
I did change the recipe a little bit and used coconut sugar instead of brown and white sugar. That gave the crunch bars a taste of caramel which turned out very well!
I also changed the frosting because I wanted to try out chocolate frosting with sour cream! The result was not very sweet (which I like) with a nice light tartly taste. I probably wouldn't put it on just any cake but luckily was delicious on the crunch bars!

My sour cream chocolate frosting:
100g (3.5oz) 60% dark chocolate
2 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup of sour cream
1 cup of coconut sugar
Melt the chocolate in a bowl above hot water. Add the vanilla extract and instantly whisk in half of the coconut sugar. Then add the sour cream and the rest of the coconut sugar and whisk until smooth.