Gristle Soup

I am totally loving what I'm calling gristle soup for lunch. Since I purchased 12 pounds of chicken breast the other day and my husband isn't such a fan I've been trimming those suckers like crazy before I bake them to get all the gristle off. I had thought to throw the trimmings in some boiling water so they wouldn't stink up my trash can and the idea evolved into a chicken broth veggie soup. Since then I've made the soup each time I've cooked chicken. My goodness I've been missing out on some yummy soup all of my life.

If you too must cut essentially all the white parts off of boneless skinless chicken breasts then here's my recipe (I just made it up) for Gristle Soup:

about 5 cups of water

the trimmings from 3 chicken breasts

a carrot sliced

2 cloves of garlic minced

some onion sliced

season with salt to your liking (we don't use much salt... food network would not approve)

bring to boil, simmer for just under an hour, I leave uncovered

strain the soup and remove the chicken parts then add the rest of the contents back to the broth

(last time I pulled the edible chicken from the "gristle" and put it back into the soup)

bring back to boil and add about 1/3 cup of frozen pea and 1/3 cup of frozen corn

simmer for 3 or 4 minutes

done

You can really use any veggies you have on hand. I've been delighted with how many times I was able to use up a veggie or a chunk of onion that was just about to spoil by throwing it into my gristle soup this past week. I only hope I'm not shooting myself in the foot with energy costs by boiling my about two servings worth of soup for an hour...
_____________________________________

I want to call today a no spend even though it was not because it was my husband who finished off both the juice and milk last night that should have easily lasted for one more day. Ah, that would be cheating. Unfortunately we cannot go a day in this house without juice and milk. My little guy would lose it. I spent $3.86 today on two gallons of milk, a bottle of apple juice, coffee creamer and a tiny carton of heavy whipping cream. The latter two items were a treat for me so that totally cancels out the no spend cheat anyhow. I had 50 cents off the milk, $1 off the whipping cream, and a $7 store reward so it wasn't that bad of a trip in the long run. Still ruins the planned no spend. Que sera sera.

Average daily spending for 2015: $22.98

Today's lovely: When I let the dogs out this morning I was not expecting any sort of a sunrise since it was already very light out. When I looked to the west the sky was absolutely on fire. In contrast with the inches of freshly fallen pure white snow the sight was breath taking. I do love the sky. There is just something so overwhelmingly memorizing about the beauty of it. We look up to it every single day (I hope) and yet the changes in it's perfect blues, the variations in it's spectacular clouds formations, the stars at night, especially on a clear dark night when they're in all their glory, and sunrises and sunsets when the sky almost creates anew the most beautiful works of art the world has ever seen; I think it's God's reminder to us to look up and remember always that there are more amazing, more beautiful things than we've ever seen or dreamed of waiting for us beyond this world. I love the sky!