Matzo Ball Soup (aka- Jewish Penicillin)

I make great Matzo Ball Soup. Especially for a little Lutheran Girl from North Idaho. :) So I thought I would share my recipe. (the photo is from tammysrecipes.com, although the recipe is not.)

The secret to any great soup is a good base. That means no store bought chicken stock! You can go about this one of two ways. You can buy an already roasted chicken to make stock from or you can roast your own. I am going to assume you know how to roast a chicken. If you don't, I highly recommend using America's Test Kitchen recipe for it.

Stock

Take your carcass from your chicken. You want to kake sure there is still some meat and skin and definitely fat drippings, but you can use the chicken for a meal or two and still have enough on the bones to make stock. Put chicken in stock pot and cover with water.

Other ingredients:

• two purple onions
• 4-6 carrots
• 3-4 cellery stalks with the leaves still on
• whole head of garlic
• tsp of cloves
• spices- salt, pepper, savory, basil, thyme (to taste). Go light on the salt, you can always add more later.
• parsley
• lemon zest
• approx 1/4 c balsamic vinegar

Roughly chop and add all ingredients except the last three. You can leave the paper on the garlic and the onion, just take the very outer layer off for cleanliness. Cover and bring to a boil. Turn down (leaving covered! this is important, you don't want to expose broth to bacteria!) and let simmer 12-24 hours. When you are done simmering add the remaining three ingredients and bring to a boil for approx 10 minutes. Strain out all ingredients (I use a mesh colander) and then put back on stove. Boil it down to get a richer tasting broth and to conserve space in your freezer.

Ok, now you have the base for matzo ball soup. You need just need to make the soup!

Ingredients:

• Chicken (I sometimes leave this out)
• Carrots
• Celery
• Onions.
• Garlic
• Matza Balls (recipe below)

Other optional ingredients:

• Broccoli
• Leeks
• Barley

Take your veggies and chop them fine for soup. I like a lot of veggies, do the amount that suits you. You then want to saute them. You aren't going for a long saute here. Something shorter that leaves them (especially the carrots and onions) slightly caramalized and still with some crispness. After you do this add your stock and barley (if using) and simmer together for about 30 min (longer is fine).

Matzo Balls

• 1 Cup Matzo Meal (not matzo ball mix!)
• 4 large Eggs
• 1/4 C veg oil
• 1/4 C seltzer water
• 1 tsp salt
• dash of pepper, thyme, and Za'atar

Beat the eggs. Add Seltzer, oil, and spices. Mix well. Add Matzo meal and mix. Refrigerate for 1/2-1 hour. Moisten the palm of your hands with cold water and form the matzo balls. Use about 1 tsp to form balls 1/2 inch in diameter. Bring your soup to a boil and drop Matzo Balls into the soup. Cook for about 15-20 min. Then your soup is ready!

This is called Jewish Penicillin due to all the good things it has in it from the home made stock. The vitamins and minerals you get from this sort of stock are so good for you- especially during cold and flu season or while sick. I use this stock as the base for all my soups.

This is great to serve with a salad or sandwiches, but is also really a meal unto itself. Enjoy!

Kitchen Tip Tuesday

This is my first time participating in Kitchen Tip Tuesday, hosted by Tammy's Recipes.
She is a fantastic blogger (who I have been meaning to get up on my side bar!) who posts recipes, along with pictures of her actual food, and thoughts on life and mothering and cooking and cleaning with small children under foot. Absolutely love her.

So, here is my first foray into Kitchen Tip Tuesdays :

Kitchen Scissors.
These are the kitchen scissors I use, the Henckel Kitchen Shears which I picked up at target for about $15. My knife block (also Henckel) has a spot for them, and I use them daily. My most common uses:

• Cutting up toddler food (makes cutting pasta, grapes, etc. SOOOO much faster and simpler)
• Cutting up herbs
• Cutting open packages
  
• Cutting kitchen twine
• Cutting dough

It is the cutting up toddler food that I find these to be the biggest help for. There is rarely a meal that I don't need to make food smaller for my 2 year old, and some food can be so time consuming. But with these shears it takes me about 15 seconds to turn a bowl of pasta into a toddler friendly meal. These scissors are very durable. I actually melted part of the handles on the stove at one time (oops) but the handles still held their shape, and they work just as well as the day I bought them.

They make a great wedding shower gift, or gift for that practical woman in your life. And if you like colorful things (you know who you are, Miranda) other brands make pretty ones. I just wanted mine to match my knives.



Go check out other great tips over at Tammy's. Just don't go hungry, it will only make it worse.