SC - serving whole chickens at feast

[LrdRas@aol.com]

Greetings,

  Okay, maybe not "never" I did do a more than adequate job at the Focaccia
bread.  (On the bread note - tomorrow morning I'm off to the school dining hall
to practice the subtle art of begging, as Wednesday night they had fresh baked
sourdough bread and I can't find any yeast in this town other than quick-rise.)

  The reason one should never be creative during an ear infection is home made
Chef Boyardee.  About a gallon of home made Chef Boyardee.  I almost thought
about buying a can of real Chef Boyardee to see whether or not I truly had
suceeded in taking these nice ingredients and turning them into *that*.  I
decided instead to throw it out.

  I'm pretty good at soups.  One of the first things I learned to do on my own
with cooking in the new kitchen was how to take some of that frozen soup stock
daddy gave me, put vegetables in it, and make a wonderful meal.

  And I was so proud when I made my first stock all my own in late September.

  I really enjoy cooking but I'm lazy and there is nothing nicer than a
quick-to-heat, quick-to-store, big thing of soup for this lazy cook.

  I'm pretty good at soups, I've made chicken broth soups, and noodle soup, and
mushroom soup, a corned beef and cabbage stew, and 15-bean beef-marrow stew with
cinammon and ginger.  I've also done experiments using food service sized cans
of Campbell's condensed as bases and made some other lovely soups.

  So what did I do wrong?  How could I make such an absolute kitchen terror?

  I started with a can of condensed cream of mushroom soup.  Then I added
carrots and rice.  For some reason, in addition to the rice I added 3/4s of a
package of spaghetti noodles.  I'm not quite sure why I added the spaghetti
noodles but it seemed like a good idea at the time.  Or for that matter, the end
of that jar of tomato sauce though it added a nice tang even if it did cover up
the creamy taste.  I remember being disappointed at the time that I couldn't
taste the cream as much afterwards.

  I think the spaghetti noodles were the big mistake.  Though they are a close
tie to the tomato sauce.  Why, oh why, would I put tomato sauce in a light cream
soup?

  I got home, my shoulder hurting worse than usual, went to the kitchen ready to
warm up some delicious soup.  Warming.  Warming.  Warming. 
Ahhhhhhhh............yum.............soup.............ICK!  ick. ick. ick. ick.
spit.

The moral of this story - never be creative during an ear infection.