Warm soup

It's been a few days and well the kids have been battling a cold. I think I'm winning. My best defenses for this weekend have been soup, rest, writing, some fresh air and more soup. Last week we had a family dinner at an Asian restaurant where they serve soups in a hot pot right in the middle of the table. I thought for this weekend that would be a good idea since I do not make a very good chicken soup. At this point I have no interest in trying again. So Jimmy runs to the Asian grocery store for some ingredients. Together we come up with our homeade version of a hot pot soup. The following night we had a few left over vegetable so we chopped them up and added them to our alphabet soup.

Homeade Hot Pot Soup

Quart pot
water
1 boullion cube or packet
2 carrots
handful Yu choy (or any green leaf vegetable like spinach or bak choy)
handful of bean sprouts (optional)
cabbage (use less than half of the cabbage and chop into thin slices like coleslaw)
1 garlic clove
cooked diced chicken
For flavoring soy sauce and 1 chopped scallion.


In a large pot bring 5 quarts of water to a boil. Add boullion, carrots, green leaf vegetable, sprouts, cabbage and garlic. Cook about 5-8 to minutes until vegetables are tender. When ready scoop broth and vegetables into a bowl with chicken. For flavoring add a dash of soy sauce and chopped scallion. In place of the soy sauce we sometimes use only one of the following sauces for taste: curry, black bean, sa cha or maybe a dash of chili oil.

Serving suggestions: Any of the following go well with this soup rice, vermicilli rice noodle or egg noodle
Variations: We sometimes buy thin sliced chicken, beef or pork from the Asian market and cook it with the soup. To make it vegetarian add cut up tofu.

A little warmth on a cold day or to help get rid of a cold.