Days 7 and 8 - Cornbread and Chicken Noodle Soup

These pictures are starting to look very similar. I almost re-uploaded the pancakes.

Prompts: Day 7: Make a lunch based on a stranger's favorite movie. A cashier at Target gave me "The Hunger Games." Day 8: Make a dinner based on a teacher's favorite ingredient. My friend's mother, who so happens to be a teacher, gave me tarragon, which had a lot of options.

The thought process: I may have done these a bit backward in that I made sure the recipe based on the Hunger Games went well with the soup, but regardless, I believe that it was a good decision. The cornbread was because District 12, in Panem, is located in Appalachia, and Peeta makes bread, and this happened to be one of the things that popped up when I googled "Appalachian bread recipes," so there you have that.

The tarragon was a bit harder to base something off of--a lot of what I found involved using a lot of mayonnaise, a condiment that kind of disgusts me on its own, and as such I was trying to avoid that. I was fortunate enough to come across a chicken noodle soup recipe that utilized the spice, and it definitely went really well with the cornbread.

Self-reflection: After I put the food left from this recipe in the fridge I realized just how much food I’d made over the course of the last few days. There are a lot of leftovers and a lot that needs to be eaten, and I made way too much of both things today. I’m going to start paying more attention to the size of the recipes and cutting down to a reasonable amount with that.

The recipes themselves were rather straightforward and easy to make. My only complaint is that my bigger mixing bowls have been in use for holding food in the fridge and I miss them dearly, as the smaller ones make a much bigger mess when it comes to mixing large amounts of ingredients. Also, it was a bit hard to tell when the soup was done. Simmering is a process that does not exactly have a clear ending.

As for the taste of the food, the soup was extremely delicious, though it got cold a bit too fast for my taste and there was a bit too much broth in comparison to actual ingredients. Also probably a bit too much of the spices, but it gave the broth a pretty great flavor. The cornbread itself was extremely bland, but when combined with the soup made for a great combination.

Quote to sum up the cooking process: “I got you some waffles here, courtesy of J.J.’s Diner, and chicken soup, courtesy of me.”

“I’ll take the waffles, thank you!”

[interim dialogue]

“I left the chicken soup just in case, it’s not a big deal, just an old family recipe.”
“Thank you for that.”

(from a super cute Ben/Leslie scene in Parks and Recreation Season 3)

Recipe Credits:

Chicken noodle soup: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/25759/steves-chicken-noodle-soup/?internalSource=recipe%20hub&referringId=1075&referringContentType=recipe%20hub

Cornbread: http://appalachianheartwood.blogspot.com/2013/07/mamas-appalachian-corn-bread-recipe.html