Caribbean Chicken Soup In My Kitchen

It’s been a long while, dear reader, since I’ve written much on the blog! Yeah really! This blog has poked at me every day for quite some time.

I don’t think anyone is out there reading anyway and much thanks if you are. But you can’t do much just standing still let alone hit anything. Moving even in the wrong direction you stand a likely chance of eventually hitting something and can maybe make a course correction if need be. However, I was only just ten feet away in my kitchen most of the time and posting a food picture every so often on Instagram.

Sitting down to write my thoughts here just seemed so hard to do most the time. Things I tried to write just never got published and going back and finishing draft posts I started long ago I just didn’t quite had the enthusiasm to finish either. However, over all that time I just kept cooking things as I regularly did and working on my cooking skills. Sometimes just reading various food magazines and cookbooks. At best it was just often fun to queue up any of my many full seasons of Barefoot Contessa and watch Ina Garten cook and learn in-between the lines. I’m rather good learning by just watching and improvising after. At other times it was taking a recent Gordon Ramsay Cooking Course. But on Saturday I decided to make some Caribbean Island Chicken Vegetable soup.

Growing up in the Caribbean (St.Kitts) with my family and very much my Aunt, I always remembered on Saturday’s we often had soups of various kind. I’m not sure why we very often had soups on Saturday’s. My family had lots of animals Cows, Goats, Sheep, Pigs, Chickens, and Rabbits. We lived in the country after all. As a kid, I also had the daily chore before school everyday living in the country on the island of taking some of the animals out to the pasture for the day and picking them up returning them to the yard every day in the evening. However quite often on the weekend, someone would kill and butcher some the animals for meat. Yeah, with me helping along sometimes. I knew the meaning of farm to table for food. Buying meat was expensive! Having your own animals saved you $$ when it came to meat. We had that. Yet we also did grow a lot of various vegetables.

Quite often we had soup when something was butchered, including chickens. And that for me was part of growing up in a different culture with different variations of soups often on Saturday’s in the Islands. And in my own little way, I still continue that practice and tradition myself of making various Caribbean Soups on Saturday’s if I can help it. It’s just a personal thing for me as part of my Island heritage and keeping parts of my culture alive living in the U.S.

There was no specific recipe in mind for this Caribbean Chicken-Vegetable Soup except using some Chicken Wings. So my version. As well using my fairly new big Dutchie Pot. Usually, cook enough for having leftovers which save cooking the next day, that’s cooking single and saving time. I just added vegetables I had on hand in my kitchen already. Some Eddoe’s, Pumpkin, Sweet Potatoes, Corn, little White Potatoes, Carrots, Celery, Okra and just chopped up how much of each I felt like using. Some Yellow Split Peas. Added some herbs I had on hand like Parsley, Cilantro along with a bit of Garlic and diced Sweet Onions. I have a ton of spice in my kitchen pantry (eh a lot!) like most islanders who often cook do. So added in some Paprika, Coriander, Dried Sage, Curry (Caribbean Curry), Allspice, Clove buds. Canned diced Tomatoes and Tomato Paste, Salt and Pepper obviously. As well a Birds Eye Chili Pepper for some extra flavor. It turned out rather well! That’s just what I call winging it with no real recipe in mind. My Grandmother used to cook from memory. My Aunt did the same thing too. And for the most part, that’s just how I often cook as well. Reaching into my stocked pantry and adding something for flavor.

Hopefully, I can sit down, focus, write and move forward with this blog and its journey