Rains to no end
WHAT with the dreary non-stop rains for the past 12 days and with no end in sight, it is enough for a mother to grow cabin fever thinking about what to serve to her family, and the same time keep within a budget and at the same time keep the children happy in the house while classes are suspended. It seems that the only do able thing is to have soup and hot rice always ready for the family.
The most practical solution is to boil the biggest chicken you can find, add some pork bones and some beef bones, boil the whole combination together in a stock pot and just let the soup simmer till hot and tasty. Usually, a whole chicken, a lot of 'buto-buto' will do the trick nicely. Toss in a lump of ginger, and you have a fragrant healthy soup good for one or two days of various possibilities.
If you start off with a big whole chicken, lots of soup bones, and begin to simmer your broth at the beginning of the day, you should have a tasty soup by noon time.
Stage one would be to get some broth and some chicken for lunch. If you feel like, get one or two sayotes and drop them into the soup with long finger chilies and silli leaves. (If you have) If you don’t have silli leaves, try some sayote shoots. With rice and bananas, that would make for a substantially healthy meal.
Stage 2 would be to keep on the simmering and have a more elaborate soup based dish. You could have a potato or two and some cabbage, and add 2 or 3 cooking bananas, (dippig) into the soup and have a heartier 'pochero' type of supper. If you add a half package of tomato paste or sauce, it will make the dish tastier.
If you still have meat on the bones, and no more soup left, the following day you may use the final dish for as a dryer version of a meat and potato main dish. Just add potatoes and carrots, or broccoli and oyster sauce, thickening the sauce slightly with a teaspoon of cornstarch.
However you would wish to play on the soup base, you surely cannot go wrong, because having the stock ready on the stove and a medley of veggies and additions will always work for a harried mother cooped up in the house with children hungry.
Dear mothers, may I advise you not to go to the wet market during these kinds of weather. This is because of the danger of slipping in the wet places. But then again, bargains are to be found in the market, since rain weather usually brings out bargains in the ambulant vending side.
If you do go to the wet market, try very hard to bring a companion with you. At least, you won’t be alone. Just be careful, careful, and careful.
For a stock pot of soup:
1. a big whole chicken
2. a kilo of buto-buto, pork
3. a kilo of buto-buto, beef.
4. a sizeable chunk of ginger
5. a whole onion,
6. a few cloves of garlic.
7. a small packet of flavor granules.
8. salt and pepper to taste
Fill a big stock pot or caldero with water to cover all of the above. Bring to a boil and remove the scum which will float on the top. When the scum is removed, cover tightly and turn down the heat to the lowest possible, or if you have a charcoal stove, put the pot over some charcoal and simmer till tender. (The beef will take longest. If you wish, you may remove the more tender parts and leave the beef pieces.
That’s about it. From there you can take this soup dish to any kind of cooking.
If you have any kind of broth left, you may also cook a noodle dish, and use the broth rather than water. All moms know that noodles cooked with broth is much tastier than noodles cooked with plain water.
All in all try cooking with a soup based menu. The trick is to remove the portion you are going to use from the main pot, and not to mix the ingredients into the stock pot. That way, you will run less risk of spoilage and messy looking dishes. Even just plain soup with a scrambled egg and onion greens on top of the soup makes a tummy warming addition to you menu.
In the meantime, keep safe, don’t get sick, and watch you plants grown these days.
BON APPETIT