The Family Table: When winter still hasn’t come
Hate me now, but I’m going to say it: there’s something terribly depressing about a winter without snow.
It’s not that I want feet and feet of it, but it also shouldn’t be 64 degrees (the predicted temperature for Saturday) in the middle of January.
We live in Southwestern Pennsylvania, and one of the best things I love best about that is getting defined seasons – including enough of the white stuff to be able to build a snowman.
On the way to school Monday, Josie, 11, lamented the lack of predicted flurries last night into that morning. Not, she claimed, because she wanted to have a delay or an extra day off for holiday break.
The spring-like rainy weather has been putting a crimp in her mountain biking. She tells me that riding in snow is preferable to riding in mud.
Also, she opined, if we’re going to have winter-type illnesses, we should at least get the weather to go along with it.
She’s definitely right on that one.
If you’re going to medicate a sore throat or cough with some soup, it shouldn’t feel too warm outside to eat it.
Our family of five has managed to avoid getting really sick so far during this winter season, but I know it’s unlikely that one of us won’t end up with a cold or cough at some point.
When it strikes, I have soup fixings ready.
I keep soup bags in my freezer — all of the ingredients for a pot of soup in one bag, ready to empty into my beloved electric pressure cooker to make a piping hot bowl of comfort food.
Chicken soup is a favorite with all three kids.
The ingredients I freeze are simple: four skinless, bone-in chicken thighs, three peeled carrots (cut in half), two stalks of celery (cut in half), a handful of fresh parsley, a slice of fresh ginger, a couple of cloves of peeled garlic and a peeled halved onion.
When the sniffles hit, I pull my bag out of the freezer, dump it right into the pressure cooker with about 10-12 cups of water and turn it on for 25 minutes.
Once that process is complete, I strain it, toss out the onion and ginger, chop up the veggies and chicken and stir them back into the broth. Season it all with salt and pepper, and if noodles are a must, boil them separately.
The outcome is always soup-perb and it never lasts long.
There are many websites out there that espouse the virtues of chicken soup for curing illness. The Cleveland Clinic, for example, notes that carnosine, a compound in chicken soup, can help prevent colds and the flu.
UPMC notes that the veggies and chicken strengthen the immune system, while the broth provides hydration.
The science of it is definitely fascinating, but I think the love that goes into a homemade pot of soup — even one that comes from the freezer and may be served on a 60-degree pseudo-winter day — is the real magic.