Happy Cooking Day!

Today my husband and I had the day off together, so we decided to make it a homemade kind of a day.  My husband makes the best Chicken and Rice Soup with his simple recipe which consisted of:

1 whole chicken

8 carrots

1 entire head of celery (leaves and all)

1/2 white onion

salt and pepper to taste

First he makes the broth, so the carrots, celery and onion in this part will be discarded after the broth is made.

Combine the leaves and complete bottom part of the celery (leave the good parts for the soup), 4 carrots and 1/4 of the onion into a large pot and fill with water to about 1" below the rim.  Bring it to a boil on level 5, and then simmer on level 2 for about 31/2 hours.

Now for the real work, time to strain the chicken and vegetables from the broth.  We poured the broth through a strainer into another 5 quart pan that we had sitting in the sink just in case there was splashing. 

Next, allow the chicken and vegetables to cool, and while they are cooling it's time to "de-fatilize" as my husband would say, which translates to remove the fat.  We used a measuring cup that has a spout to help remove the fat.

Return the broth to the original pot and put back on the burner on level 5 to bring back to a boil.

Once the chicken and vegetables are cooled remove all of the vegetables and discard.

 Then pick through the chicken and put all of the meaty parts into the broth along with the rest of the vegetables. 

After it comes to a boil (to get the vegetables to cook through), add about a 1/4 cup of rice and reduce the temperature to level 2 and simmer for another 20-25 minutes.

Serve and enjoy!

(Not sure how many it feeds, but it's a lot!)

For my part in the cooking spree, I made this Italian bread from the recipe on the back of the Pilsbury Bread Flour bag. 

I added some course salt to mine.

Since today was a gloomy day, it turned out to be the perfect bread and soup kind of a day.

On to dessert...

My husband picked this out...it was a Duncan Hines Carrot Cake box kit, that's where the semi-homemade

 part comes in as well as the store bought cream cheese frosting, but the decorting was all me :)

I just put some of the frosting into two sandwich baggies, added food coloring, cut a tiny tip off one of the corners and then decorated!

A little coffee and cake to wrap up a wonderful cooking day spent with my husband.

Life's good!