A Winter Soup -- 'Chinese style'

Whenever I roast a chicken or a rabbit I toss the post-meal bones into a stock pot with a few herbs, perhaps an onion, cover them with water and make stock. With the wood stove going nearly non-stop, it serves as the perfect slow simmering spot to draw out the flavors from those bones over a twenty-four hour period.

Once I've my two to three cups of stock, I drain it through a sieve -- putting the scraps outside for Filou and his friends to devour. It is then ready to add to my kids' current favorite soup.

This is my cheap, nourishing winter meal.

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 carrots peeled and diced very small
one onion diced very small
1 quart of water
my chicken stock
one organic vegetable bouillon cube
a handful of frozen peas and/or corn
A package of Asian rice noodles
some soy sauce to taste




I drizzle the oil on the bottom of the stock pot, toss in the carrots and onions (or if I'm getting a bit daring, chopped leeks and cabbage, but I'm afraid my kids weren't too psyched to recognize these green bits in their soup this past time), lightly sweat these before covering with the liquid ingredients, adding in the bouillon cube and letting simmer till soft (about 30 minutes on my wood stove). I then add in the peas and/or corn and the rice noodles. When the rice noodles are tender, I check the flavor, add a bit of soy sauce and serve.

The kids get a kick out of mastering chop sticks. They already are fans of gomasio (sesame salt) and add it if needed to punch up the flavor.

The broth fills them up, as do the noodles. Warmed from within, homework and bed to follow come naturally on this dark winter's night.