I Made Soup

This morning, I was feeling good for the first time in several days. Let's hear it for digestive health.

Anyway, I put a pork roast in the slow cooker for Charles, cleaned the microwave, ran a load of dishes, and then decided that for lunch I needed soup.

So. Soup. And homemade soup, not soup from a can (I had that yesterday) (It was good) (But since I had it yesterday, it's gone!).

So first I took out my deep cast iron enamel-coated Le Creuset pot and set it on medium. I added 4 slices of bacon because, hey, it's bacon.

Once those were crispy, I fished them out and tossed in an onion I'd diced quite small (I hate big pieces of onion in my soup). I turned down the heat a little and let those sweat with a little salt.

Then I tried to figure out what else to add. It was like that children's book Stone Soup. I added a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme that were in the fridge, and cut up some chicken tenders I had (raw, purchased yesterday with indeterminate intent), threw in five or six teensy carrots cut into very small pieces, and then poured in about 4 cups of chicken stock. It looked pretty good.

But then! I had a stroke of leftover brilliance. In the fridge was an old wedge of lemon. Aha! The Greeks put that in soup! And they add rice... So I squeezed the (generous) wedge into the soup and tossed in the piece to steep, then added a half cup of long-grain rice and the chopped crispy bacon (minus 2 bites for me and one for Iain).

20 minutes later: yum. Thick chicken soup with a smoky bacon flavor, and bits of onion and thyme. The lemon wasn't strong - just a little acid to cut that chicken fat flavor.

And there's extra for tomorrow's lunch!