Fried Chicken and Cheesesteaks

My husband asked recently about a mushroom soup, so when I was at the grocery store recently I picked up a big package each of sliced baby portabellas and sliced white button mushrooms.    This their story.   1st, starting yesterday, roast a chicken and make stock overnight from the bones.     WHAT?   You didn't want to roast a chicken just to make mushroom soup?   Ok.  In that case you'll need about 1.5 quarts of chicken or veggie broth.    Rinse the mushrooms well, while your soup pot or dutch oven heats with a turn of olive oil.     Add the mushrooms, cover and let them cook down.    Stir once in a while.      Meanwhile crush up a good handful of a more flavorful dried mushroom into some hot stock.   I had dried porcinis on hand, but there are lots of different ones available.    Once the mushrooms are...

I love a good soup, made from scratch. With a homemade long brewed stock . But during the winter, especially when our lives are very busy and/or we're fighting illness, I want to eat soup more often than I have bones to make homemade stock. So instead, frequently I doctor prepared soups: Trader Joes Corn & Pepper soup: + frozen corn + some type of already cooked protein (in this case, Langostino Tails, which I've been dying to try. Ok, but I wouldn't buy them again) Canned chicken, frozen shrimp, leftover poultry or sausage would all work. Heat and serve! Another soup - tortellini & spinach soup. Chicken broth: Add some flavors: frozen tortellini: + some frozen spinach

Note: Due to a spammer, comments have been turned off for this post, and will be moderated from now on. Sorry! A hearty winter soup, with lots of healthy leafy greens - and in keeping with our green theme here in Philadelphia! Start by chopping and sauteeing two large onions, then cooking in a bit of bacon grease or olive oil until translucent: Dump them into the crockpot. Peel and chop a one pound carrot: Oh - you don't have a giant carrot? Then just use a few smaller ones. Add them to the crockpot too. Brown about two pounds of italian sausage, casings removed. (Hot or sweet? depends - do you like bites of spicy heat in your soup?) Open and drain two cans of chick peas. Throw them in too. This is the ultra fancy Walmart store brand. We're high fallutin that way. Wash and rip up a whole bunch of kale. (I would say 8-10 cups of raw leaves) I seasoned with just a touch of salt while cooking. Sautee briefly in a pan, in oil or bacon grease, before adding to crockpot. To this add...

Sometimes I read cookbooks where the author seems to think we're still cooking on these: Especially when they say it takes hours to make chicken stock. Yes, good chicken stock must simmer for hours. But that doesn't mean you need to WATCH it simmer! Almost everyone has a crockpot - perfect for chicken broth. Place chicken bones from one or two chickens in a crockpot. I recently started putting only the large bones in the crockpot. It reduces the mess in straining it later. Add any or all of the following: a few whole peppercorns, a bay leaf, a quartered onion (or if you are quite frugal, save the ends of the onions you normally discard), a chopped carrot, a chopped stalk of celery. Simmer on your lowest setting overnight. Allow to cool for an hour or more, then pour into a holding container through a strainer.