Delicious!

So, yesterday was the 3rd day of the 2nd stretch of my holiday (confused...? so am I ;)

 

I decided that I would make us a Moroccan chicken and chickpea soup and so I Googled 3 recipes that I combined to make an awesome flavour-filled pot of steaming soup. After I bought 2 whole chickens and a few minor ingredients from the supermarket, Jenni and I ventured into our garden to harvest a few sprigs of this and that and gather an entire basket of veg fresh for the pot. Taking Jenn along of coarse makes the job take twice as long, since I have to keep rescuing my celery stalks and spinach leaves from my little helper... before all our ingredients end up with baby-dog teeth marks in them. I ended up giving her the first piece of whatever I was picking and then she would run off with the piece of bean or whatever - rather cute.

 

Mmmm mmmm, Delicious, Frikkie's favourite !

 

Back in the kitchen we had an entire basket full of spinach, parsley, celery, tarragon, marjoram, thyme and 2 chillies fresh from our own organic garden. In the photo is also a bunch of cilantro (young coriander leaves) that I'd thinned out the previous day. I was looking desperately for a few islands of salad burnet and found 3 babies from the seeds I'd sown along with the coriander, so I made some space for them to grow. I just love both the salad burnet and coriander because they will always reseed them self and you'll have some for ever if you don't pull them out (which = easy enough).

 

Next I resumed cooking up a storm and started off with a few pieces of chicken in a pot of water, rice and lentils, to cook stew for the Poopy. Then I cut away loads of fat and skin and kept some chicken fillets aside for the soup. The rest was all hacked up (it feels so primitive, but I like it) and thrown into the pressure-cooker along with (quite) a few peppercorns and dried bay leaves from previous trimmings of our garden. I added some veggies plus a load of herbs, garlic and pieces of fresh ginger. Mmmm, I could have the stock alone for dinner, just with some salt of coarse. After the stock was done (a few hours later) it was drained and I fried Onions, yellow mustard seeds, ground coriander, cumin and ginger, fresh garlic and carrots. After cooking it a while in about 2 L of stock I added the chickpeas, celery stalks, small pieces of chicken fillet and some salt and I think that was it. Then I poured almost everything into the blender and pureed it, back in the pot, adjusted the seasoning and Violllaaaa!! We had the soup with some shop-made naan bread and it was delicious! :)

 

I had also, in my desperation to try and get Miss Fussy to eat her food, figured out that she doesn't like her stew and pellets together in the same bowl. Well, of coarse...!?? So, now I put her dry pellets in the big dog dish and the stew or wet food in a smaller bowl and thus far she has eaten ALL the food every time. Amazing! Dogs and cats can rule your life for you. At least she's eating everything I give her now and of coarse she LOVED the home-made chicken stew I cooked her. It is a lot of hassle, but I just love doing it, just like my great-grandmother used to cook stew for her dogs (in the days before Hills and Eukanuba, hell, even before Husky!). I used to help her chop in big pieces of carrot and watched her pour milk over the finished "pap". Those dogs were lucky indeed.

 

Speaking of lucky dogs - ours is certainly spoiled as can be... I took her shopping for a few toys this morning, my argument being that if she pics them out herself she will actually play with them right...? Well, Jenni picked out a little squeaky lobster ;)

... but on the way home she was far more entertained by the price tag, which was quickly torn apart in the back of the car. The lobster was left unscathed ;) So typical!