Thanksgiving Is On The Way
and my own chicken noodle soup recipe

As of 3:00 PM Monday, my dreams of joining an outlaw biker gang will end and my motorcycles will be picked up as a donation to Saint Jude’s Children’s Hospital, their value going to a wonderful cause. If you are not familiar with their work, in their words…

“St. Jude exists to solve the most serious diseases affecting children.

We’re dedicated to advancing cures and prevention through research, exceptional care and an unwavering commitment to our patients and their families.

St. Jude is a research facility, a children’s hospital, a degree-granting medical center and a trusted nonprofit. We share what we learn from research and patient care on our campus in Memphis, Tennessee, so our discoveries can help children around the world. Our purpose is clear: Finding cures. Saving children.®”

With Thanksgiving near, I can’t help but be thankful for a good life, good family and good friends. I am humbled by all that I have received and all of the opportunities afforded. No doubt the work and kindness of the good Lord who is always near.

This week’s major achievement

The shed has been the refuge of last resort for miscellanea and all things landscaping. If it wasn’t on the season’s active duty list, or didn’t fit in the shop, basement or garage it went in the shed. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice the sides of the little building bulged outward, or the fact I had to back the tractor up against the doors for them to close. So when I opened the doors and found myself buried in thirty-seven carelessly folded tarps, a game of Scrabble with missing tiles, car parts from 1967, and a crow bar that went missing in ’86 I was surprised.

After emptying the shed’s contents onto the lawn, I spent the week inside of it installing and/or constructing wall racks and shelves and strategically placing pegboard and specialty hooks. Not only is everything were I can get to it, but it is organized to the DDC. What genius did I apply to recover all of that room, potentially left for a small sofa and large TV? Rural storage!

When people live on rural parcels of woodland, they tend have a bulk storage area. Yes, a dump. In this case, back behind the tree line is an area with RP-342’d, palletized and tarped items in longer term storage. So after excising the lawn roller, pull behind seeder, bags of potting soil, top soil and mulch… backhoe carrier, pavers, polymeric sand, miscellaneous broken pump sprayers, and a tunnel ram intake manifold for a 385 series Ford Engine… big port, the area left behind in the shed could only be termed “spacious”.

Let there be soup. More accurately, let there be more soup

Chicken soup as a concept is a wonderful thing. Unfortunately, most recipes don’t comply with my definition of that corner of the soup universe, so I created my own. Over time the recipe has changed. As an example, two drops of fuel kerosene has been omitted from the slow cooker prep and I no longer use a drill mounted paint mixer to stir ingredients. So for what it is worth…

Old Guy’s Slow Cooker Chicken Noodle Soup

Ingredients:

1 large white onion diced
2 tablespoons minced garlic or 3 cloves crushed fresh garlic
3/4 cup of sliced baby carrots… because chopped or diced just looks wrong
4 ribs worth of sliced celery hearts
2 very large boneless/skinless chicken breasts cubed to size of preference… Cooks faster and a quick pass through temperature danger zone
2 teaspoons of dried basil
4 sprigs worth of fresh chopped Italian parsley… tastes good and aromatic
1/2 teaspoon of thyme
1 bay leaf… cook with, don’t eat
1/2 teaspoon of fresh ground black pepper
1 table spoon of Kosher coarse salt
4 cups of chicken broth liquid
2 cups of chicken broth from cubes… more flavorful than water, but less salt and fat than liquid broth
12 oz yolkful wide egg noodles

Sometimes I add 12 oz halved baby Portabella mushroom caps… I don’t know why. Maybe the bite density?
If I only have bone-in chicken breasts, I use three. I cook whole for six hours, pull them out and shred the chicken from the bone and return the chicken to the cooker. I personally find the random shapes and sizes chaotic.

Instructions:
Put everything EXCEPT THE NOODLES in the slow cooker, set it to low for eight hours, or high for six, and leave it alone except as noted. Do not interfere with the slow cooker, do not lift the lid to peek inside, do not stir, do no taste… raw chicken.

Thirty minutes before done, plop in the noodles. Press them into the liquid, even if they insist on floating back above liquid level. Replace the lid and leave the noodles alone. They will cook without assistance.

That’s all I’ve got. If I do not write again before Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!