This hub is a request (challenge) hub for Sally Trove who writes some really neat hubs.

Picture an old gray haired man standing in the kitchen decked out in his slightly off white (recycled fiber) cooking apron. My wife is mortified that I happen to be wearing my plaid Bermuda shorts and my Jeff Gordon NASCAR racing tee shirt. I guess I should stop right here and apologize for that visual.

I have cleared the decks (counters) in preparation for one great pot of soup and one holy mess. Once again my poor bride is mortified because she knows what I am going to do to her kitchen. Did I mention I got fired from dishwasher loading?

I place my canvas reusable grocery bags on the counter. My ingredients are organically (Check out Amy Jane’s hub pages) and locally grown (when possible). The reason for this is that the quality control in far away places leaves much to be desired plus the transportation causes a carbon footprint that would far out strip any advantages that recycling containers and composting could save. You will be pleasantly surprised how you can create good meals with in season foods. I do want to repeat the double benefits of buying locally grown food whenever possible. This creates a double win for your farmers and the environment.

I get out several cutting boards. Notice I am well trained not to reuse the chicken cutting board :-). I like to chop the vegetables in larger chunks so you can enjoy the individual flavors. I also use the entire celery stock including the leaves. I cut my onions in varied sizes and brown about half of them and leave the other half raw. I cut the carrots fairly thick but I also shave several carrots to add that unique sweet carrot taste. I brown half of the mushrooms. When I can get them I like to add turnips but if you don’t like them potatoes will do. I load the pot up with veggies. Don’t worry Myra (my wife) has sufficiently supervised my washing and rewashing, and rewashing all the vegetables.

In my 3 gallon soup pot I start with 1 quart of water, add the large carrots, 1/4^th of the raw onions, all the celery, the turnips and the raw mushrooms to create a vegetable stock and cook the carrots at the same time. I cook this about 30 minutes on medium low with a lid. At the same time I brown 2 pounds of diced ½”x ½” chicken until cooked well done and then I increase the heat and splash on some Worcestershire sauce and let them get good and brown. At this point I promise Myra I will clean that frying pan.

I now add the chicken and 4 cans of Fat free (another visual for you), low sodium chicken stock and 2 cans of vegetable stock. Okay, you dragged it out of me, yes I do cheat and add two envelopes of onion mushroom dip mix. Wow I feel better having admitted that. I cover and cook it for a while and we eat our first batch. Now I leave it to cook even longer. I find the two flavors are completely different.

Notice I don’t add salt. Myra likes it when I add pepper so I do.

Now I have to put the steel broth cans in the curbside recycling bins, minus their labels if they are paper ones. I compost the remainder of my veggies.

The time has come to tear off a hunk of organic whole wheat bread and commence to sopping and slurping. What, you want to know about the kitchen…………Oh, I am sorry I have run out of ink in my printe