I started out with a long, detailed list of resolutions for 2014.  At this point, the end of February, they have all fallen by the wayside, except for one. Welcome to week eight of my resolution to write at least one blog post a week for all of 2014. My personal goal thankfully happens to coincide with Reddit’s 52 Weeks of Cooking challenge. This week’s cooking challenge theme is, TV Show Inspired. Dominic and I are working our way through Seinfeld reruns, and watched this episode the other night. I decided to make mulligatawny in honor of this amazingly funny Seinfeld episode.

I went shopping today for some items that I needed to make Mulligatawny Soup. One of the items was celery. I cannot remember the last time I purchased this item, or any vegetables at the grocery store. I came home, and Dominic had the same thought when he saw the celery. He asked me if It felt weird buying it at the store. It felt a little weird.

Oakhill Organics has changed my family for the better. We are so conscious of, and thankful for our local farmers, and how hard they work to bring us our food. We truly choose to buy locally, and seasonally, whenever possible.

Some of the recipes I looked at called for scallions, and/or cilantro as garnishes. The other day I saw these lovely chives peeking out of the ground, so today I clipped them, and used them as a garnish, as well as some chopped cashews, and coconut flakes. They are so fragrant, with a mild onion flavor. While putting our chickens to bed,  I spotted another sprouting of these happy chives, near some yellow crocuses.  I will be snipping them tomorrow morning to add to my egg, onion, and cabbage scramble.

The celery I purchased still had some bright, lively looking leaves on it, so I used them too. We try to use everything, and what we don’t use, we give to our chickens, or compost.

I love pictures that show piles of the different spices before they meld together.  I just dumped all the spices in, and stirred them up with the veggies on medium low heat. When I started smelling the spices, I nestled my browned chicken legs into the pot.

Then I added the broth, and brought everything to a boil, gently stirring everything. I turned down the heat, and simmered it all uncovered for about thirty to forty minutes. I  took out the chicken legs and shredded, and chopped them into bite sized pieces. I pulsed the soup with a hand blender five or six times, so I thought the soup was still quite a bit chunky. It was just a bit chunky.

When I make this again, I will add three more chicken legs, and I will ladle some vegetables and broth out of the pot to blend, so I leave the majority of the soup chunky. My five year old daughter loved the soup, but after she ate it she said, ” that was really good! Now are you going to make me something I can chew”.

This soup is also inspired by my neighbor, and friend, whose curry powder I used to make it. This is not spicy soup. If you like a little spice feel free to add some jalapeno seeds into the soup, or use a little bit of a spicy curry powder, or some cayenne pepper. I hope you make and enjoy this soup with your family and friends.

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