A Wee Sick Day

I am so glad I spent those hot days of summer putting our veggies into stocks and soups. I officially have the sick, and am eating lots of nutritious chicken and rice soup, plus lamb aspic cubes for strength and kale from my autumn garden. It makes me feel better to remember making this soup with things from my own yard, plus a chicken.

Also, I do have to work tonight. This is why I am staying in bed all day and taking naps. It's important that I am ready for burgers and bloody mary bar staff meal later on! Plus tomorrow- chanterelle hunting!!!!

This Was Not My Idea

I know, EEWWWW!!!

But seriously, I am so excited about what you are looking at here. It's aspic (and a lot of fat and bits stuck to the sides of the pot), and then it's aspic in ice cube trays. Horray!
"But why?", You might be wondering.

I'll tell you why. My friend and Captain, Sous Chef Will gave me this idea. I made the aspic by accident. I was making a stock with the lamb and duck bones from the cassoulet, and did not have time to make an actual soup with the stock. So I put it in the fridge, and the next day it was a meat jelly (apparently this means I did a good job and used really great hearty bones.) But then another day passed and I started to worry that my meat jelly would go to waste, and so I asked Will what to do. He suggested that I put the aspic in ice cube trays, freeze it, remove the cubes from the tray and put them into a plastic bag for easy frozen storage. And then, whenever I am making fancy sauce or whatever I can just take a few cubes out and I'm ready to go! This is so exciting to me that I almost have butterflies over aspic cubes. Or I drank too much coffee. Either way- I am thrilled.