Vegetable Soup w/ Baked Chicken

On a cold windy rainy day like today, I decided to warm the tummy and make Vegetable Soup w/ Baked Chicken and Garlic Toast.

You would think that vegetable soup would be easy peasy but for me, preparing this soup takes quite a while because of all the dicing. Everything in it is diced except the hotdogs thats sliced.

And I made a MASSIVE pot of soup that could literally feed 3 families. I intend to keep a portion for vegetable pasta soup for the girls one of these days and maybe freeze a portion for tomorrow.

The good thing about this dish is that its so adaptable. Add pasta and it becomes a vegetable pasta soup. Add minced meat and it becomes spaghetti bolognaise. Just boil spaghetti & add cheese! Cook some pork/beef cubes and it becomes a stew!

When I cook, I have my dance music on for ambience and CJ popped his head in at the kitchen door while I was cooking and said "I know whats going to come out is going to be really yummy. Y'know how I know?..... because you're dancing and enjoying yourself" And it was so true! A happy chef makes good food. :)

The thing that CJ didn't realise was that he was going to consume a large amount of vegetables! From a non vegetable eater like him. He would not purposely choose & eat vegetables unless I make it. And this definitely gives him more than his usual daily vegetable serving requirements. :)

The ingredients listed here was what I used but I would assume that for a NORMAL family portion, you would need only 1-2 of each vegetable at most. I love my soups chunky so this is how I do it. No straight from the can soup. This one is completely super for the tummy.

Whats in it? Remember, everything diced.

2 carrots

6 potatoes

4 sticks of celery

1 old cucumber *brown type - remove seeds*

6 medium white onions

8 fresh red tomatoes *remove jelly/seeds*

2 large corn on the cob *kernels chopped off the cob*

4 cloves of garlic

1 pack of chicken hotdogs *sliced*

1 small can tomato paste

1 small can tomato puree

Seasoning: 10 dashes of the following...

Black pepper

White pepper

Paprika

Oregano

Italian Seasoning

2 teaspoons of light soyasauce

3 cubes of Knorrs Chicken cube

Put everything in one huge pot, pour in water till almost near the brim or at least 2-3cm above the top vegetable height and let it boil, stirring occassionally. But for me, I stir every 1 minute just to make sure all the heat is distributed through all the vegetables.

I let it boil on medium heat for at least 40 minutes or till the potatoes are super soft. Then this comes the troublesome part. I scoop out all the hotdogs and half the the chunky vegetables into another pot and use my braun soup blender *as seen below* which goes into the existing boiling soup and blend the remaining vegetables in the pot to make a stew like soup base. Once they're blended, I remove my blender and pour in the hotdogs and chunky vegetables. Turn off the fire, stir and cover to let it combine and sit till ready to serve.

The Japansese style crispy Baked Chicken - was ready made from the frozen section of the supermarket under the brand Kellys. I just popped them into my toaster and baked them till they were hot and sizzling. And Garlic Toast on normal white sliced bread - how to roast garlic HERE and recipe for toast HERE.

At the end, we each had an ice popsicle and a bowl of coffee ice cream. Yummy!!!

Hot warming comfort food and dessert thats good for the tummy and calming for the mind. Enjoy. :)