An Adventure In Cooking. Also, Cheese.

I’m on cooking team this week. It’s been quite the adventure so far. Many of you know that I don’t do much cooking. I live on Spaghettios and grilled cheese sandwiches (Which is actually what I’m eating right now. Thanks for the Havarti Grandpa!)

So cooking for close to fifteen people is quite a challenge. 

I’d decided to make chicken noodle soup over mashed potatoes like my grandma did when I was a kid. Thanks to an intense craving on my part, and some intense patients on my mom’s I can make decent mashed potatoes. Chicken noodle soup is another story. I’ve never made my own chicken noodle soup. Leastwise that didn’t involve a can and a microwave and a lot of help from the Campbell’s family. But I decided to go for it. 

We (being Heidi and I) went to the market on Monday. We got all the veggies that we would need. Carrots, green onions and potatoes. I wanted celery as well, but we couldn’t find any. Does celery grow in the Philippines? I don’t know. Amber, the other girl on cooking team, went and picked up chicken and egg noodles from the grocery store. We had all the spices I thought I’d need at the house.

Tuesday at 5:30 pm Heidi and I started cooking. Peeling the potatoes took a lot longer than I’d expected. Our potato peeler was dull. It took an hour, but we got all six pounds of potatoes peeled and in the pot. We set those to boiling and then I started on the chicken. 

I had a simple recipe from the internet. It was very basic. I followed it pretty well. Chop the chicken, boil it with some salt and bouillon cubes, add the veggies and noodles. That went just fine. But it was a little bland so I decided to get fancy with the spices. A handful of salt, pepper, and lemon pepper later, it was ready to go.

Now we just had to wait for the potatoes. By this point they were almost soft enough to mash. We gave them another five minutes then drained them. I dumped them into the largest bowl we had. Heidi looked at me like I was nuts when I threw a whole block of butter into the mix. I reassured her that I know my mashed potatoes. 

We couldn’t find the electric mixer that is fabled to be in the kitchen somewhere so I grabbed the hand masher and went to town. I added some milk and salt. I burnt my knuckles on the steaming potatoes. And I hand mashed six pounds of potatoes into fluffy, creamy goodness. I was quite proud of myself. Two hours after we had started, dinner was finally ready.

Everyone said they loved the potatoes and soup. Some even went back for seconds! I was relived, and very happy. I had my doubts about how the meal was going to turn out. But I surprised myself and I make, if I do say so myself, a pretty awesome chicken noodle soup.

In other news, I got a package today! My Grandpa sent me cheese! It’s a whole block of pre sliced Havarti cheese! And it wasn’t even green! I’m very happy about that. It’s quite tasty. Thank you so much Grandpa!