Nom.

After weeks of deliberation, delays, and decision-making, I finally cooked chicken noodle soup tonight. It was very much a kitchen sink recipe: some of this, a bit of that, whatever sounded good.

I used the standard onion-carrot-celery base, with frozen celery root I'd had in the back of the freezer. I threw in a hunk of finely diced frozen horseradish left over from Passover, which had lost very little of its potency once I thawed it somewhat. I included the frozen fennel stalks I'd forgotten I had. I added the carrot stems for flavor with the horseradish, along with some other herbs and spices from the cabinet, plus a cube of chicken bouillon because I had nothing to loose. The stock was something I've had in the back of the freezer for months. The chicken breasts and egg noodles came from two people moving out of New York City and me getting their kitchen goods and perishables.

The chicken was lightly poached, then removed and shredded and returned to the pot to cook through. What's more, I made sure to cook the noodles in about half the volume of liquid called for, most of which they absorbed as they cooked through - resulting in a very thick, rich dish, more of a stew, almost a savory kugel. I could eat it on a plate.

It was a lot of fun to make, and I'm looking forward to eating it again soon, because there's sufficient leftovers I won't need to think about dinner for a decent while.