From Chicken Carcasses to Chicken Gnocchi Soup

The only two people who will probably appreciate this blog post is someone who can't figure out how to google Olive Garden's recipe for chicken gnocchi soup and my sister. My sister will appreciate it because she knows the long standing story of my mother's chicken carcass. So tonight I decided to clean out my "recipe book" cabinet. I had no idea the trip down memory lane I was about to embark on until I opened the cabinet and about 50 recipe cards, magazine clippings, and 25 "Butter Buster's and Fat Buster" cookbooks fell out.

The first recipe card I pulled out was written in my mom's handwriting. She must have given it to me at my wedding shower when all these ladies collected recipes for the new little wife that hadn't cooked a day in her life.  The meal was "Sandie's quick and easy homemade chicken soup."  The ingredients listed were: chicken carcass (w/meat and skin) and water.   Then she wrote me a whole front and back recipe card on how to boil a chicken carcass.  She even DREW A PICTURE of the pan I cook it in!!!!  OH MY GOSH! How stupid was I twenty years ago?!?!?!  (Don't ask that question to Chris.)

But tonight I got the best laugh over it.  I probably have not seen that card in 20 years.  The first thing I did was took a picture of it and text it to my sister.  Now I have to copy it and mail it to my sister.  I am still laughing an hour later over this.  Probably because my mom and chicken carcasses have been a long standing joke between us kids for years.  I don't know why - it's one of those "lovingly" private jokes you keep going behind your parents back even though you are all grown adults.  About a year ago my sister's family was down for a visit and staying with my mom.  I get a text.  It's a picture of a carcass in the crock pot mom had going for them.  We laughed all weekend over it.  I still have that picture saved on my phone.  I still laugh seeing it! (I guess you had to be there.) We all have those private family jokes -it's what makes a family!

The picture of the carcass that made me laugh out loud every time I looked at it on my phone.  I still have it on there. I cannot bring myself to delete it.

I thought I wouldn't need my cookbooks anymore since I now have a smart phone.  I am known to block 6 carts in the aisle at Walmart pulling up a recipe on my iPhone to get the list of ingredients off of.  (I don't do grocery lists.  Its  one out of at least 100 things about me that drives my husband nuts!) But these cookbooks I pulled out tugged at my little ole' heartstrings.  There was "Grandma Rose's cookbook" (Chris's mom)- again another wedding shower gift.  It was stuffed full of her handwritten recipe cards, and then all my magazine clippings I kept during life before Internet.  Then every church we have been on staff at, I have a cook book for.  (Baptist churches can put out some darn good cookbooks.)  What I love most about those is the name's attached to each recipe.  And the memories made around people's dining room table's eating those meals.  Oh man, if I could go back in time and have dinner with them again.  You just cannot get that same nostalgia with an Ipad sitting on your counter with a recipe pulled up on it.

"Grandma Rose's cookbook" - full of goodies

Brookline Baptist, Grace Baptist, First Baptist - if it has "Baptist" written anywhere on that book you know those are recipe's from people that can cook!! And I sure do love every person attached to every recipe in those books - so here's a shout out to all of our past church family!

But I'm not gonna bash Internet recipe's too much.  Where else would I have found the copy cat recipe for Olive Garden's Chicken Gnocchi soup?!?!  Here it is.... Let me have this disclaimer first.  I "amy-fied" it.  Meaning, I combined two recipes together with what I thought was the best ingredients from each. So it's really not tried and true Olive Garden soup - it's thicker - but oh man, it is just as good.

Here it is:

"Amy-fied Chicken Gnocchi Soup from Olive Garden"

Ingredients:

1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast cut into cubes

1/3 cup butter divided

1 small onion chopped

1 medium carrot shredded (Do you need a picture of that dear?)

1 celery rib chopped

2 garlic cloves minced

1/3 cup flour

3 1/2 cups milk

1 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream  (oh yeah!!!)

chicken bullion cubes

ground pepper

1 16 ounce package of potato gnocchi (can find at Greenwood Walmart - miracle in itself)

1/2 of chopped fresh spinach (I used frozen)

Spices I added to it from other recipe:

1/4 tsp of Thyme

1/2 of parsley flakes

1/4 tsp of nutmeg

"Amy-fied directions"

Cook chicken in butter - set aside

In same pan add more butter, onion, garlic, celery, carrots, spices, cook until soft

In a big round pan (this is where my mom would draw a picture) - put chicken and veggies in, add milk, flour and cream - bring to boil, then add spinach and gnocchi.  Then I kept adding chicken broth because it was so darn thick - When I got it to the consistency I wanted I ate three bowls and then went to bed with a big fat tummy ache.

And even though I got this recipe off the Internet,   (Just in case I am supposed to put this: I got the recipe off of tasteofhome.com and copykat.com) I still have some really great memories of this soup - (the actually Olive Garden soup that is) - One of the best dinners ever with one of my dearest friends.  (See my past blog "Six Water's Please" if you want that story.)

So there you have it.  I even stopped my cleaning out the cabinet to write this blog.  I better get back to work.  Because the second thing out of 100 that drives my husband nuts about me is that I like to piddle when I do a job.  Which then makes a 15 minute job turn into a 5 hour job.  And right now this job of organizing two little shelves of cookbooks has gone on for about 2 hours.

There ya go folks - my Chicken Gnocchi Soup - a billion calories of cold-weather yumminess!