Why They Call Real Food "Slow Food."

Our chickens are going crazy with egg production.

We had 18 eggs laid in the last three days, so Michael brought his first dozen to sell to a coworker.
Big money...
I'm joking.  It will be about $2 or $3 a dozen.

But it IS nice that our chickens are starting to pay for some of what we've invested into them.  And we make a fun family game of taking bets on how many eggs will be laid in a day.  People who are right get a whole treat of some sort and others who *joyfully* participate get a half treat.

Yesterday, I made up some onion soup mix.

I didn't make it so much out of necessity but more because I was reminded this past weekend of some of my mom's lovely recipes that utilize onion soup mix.  

And then, by golly, I wanted chicken and rice.  Salty.  Like Lipton onion soup mix and canned cream of chicken soup salty.

That's one thing I'm learning through this whole "real food" change.

Comfort food is MUCH more labor intensive. 

We have some health reasons/sensitivities to MSG in our family.   I've probably always been sensitive, although became increasingly symptomatic in college when I was introduced by one of my roommates to McDonalds in a big way and then began working in the college cafeteria 20 to 30 hours a week.  Now the boys and Michael are having some digestive problems (sorry if you're queasy...I used to work in GI for several years) when they partake of food containing it because we eat it so rarely.  

Because of this, we make our own mixes (taco seasoning, ranch seasoning, onion soup mix, and most bouillons---still looking for a good beef one.) 

About six months ago, I stumbled upon a really REALLY great chicken bouillon powder recipe with nutritional yeast powder that has been flavoring our soups lately.   We were running low and I needed it to flavor my cream of chicken soup that was so necessary for my comfort food craving, so I made some this morning...  Million doesn't like to help with this recipe because the last time he helped, he inhaled some of the yeast powder as it was floating in the air.  He was consequently sneezing for half an hour.

I traumatize my children early on. 

I can't find the original source of the bouillon recipe, so hopefully I'll eventually get it up here with my personalized tweaks.  (I would feel bad putting up an original recipe from someone else up here without citing the source.)  Today, I mixed it in with this cream of chicken soup recipe.  

So what used to be a plop from a can and a tearing open of a packet, plus two or three minutes to add rice, water, and chicken......now takes...  an hour if I don't have my seasonings made up, 20 or 30 minutes if I do.  

But since we're in the midst our first winter snow that has stayed on the ground, and it still has it's new magical first-snow feel, I thought a little comfort was worth it. 

Lastly, a public announcement.  This candle is not available online anywhere, from what I can tell.  But if I had the budget for it, I would buy 40 of them.  Last winter, we burned through at least six of them.  It's my all-time favorite candle scent (found at Target), and only available in the holiday season.  I broke down yesterday and bought our first one of the year.  It was worth it.