chicken broth ambrosia

it seems that the only thing that has been going right these days is cooking. i can always count on it to cheer me up and be wonderful the way it always is. cooking is never beyond my control - it is what i want it to be, and what i do that matters.

anyway, our oven has finally been cleansed of its gunk and grime. after the fire alarm debacle in which we set off the fire alarm in our building not once, not twice, but three times, we had no wish to anger the fire department or our neighbors, and opened the windows to let the frigid winter air come in. the air took the acrid smell of the oven on its self-cleaning cycle out the window with it, so we just had to deal with a kitchen and living room that resembled a refrigerator for four and a half hours. however, four and half hours later we had both chicken soup and banana bread baking in the oven. we made the broth from the two chickens that josh had roasted and brought over. surprisingly the broth wasn't that strong - you would think, with two chickens, it would be great - so we let it boil down.

in the past, i haven't let the broth boil down that much, preferring to boost it with caramelized onions and carrots. but we let it go with this broth, and though it only made a few cups of broth, it made a few cups of really spectacular broth. i might have to let my broths boil down more, because this one had an amazing silky, velvet texture to it - it was a soup with substance. usually my chicken soups are a nice, traditional broth with stuff in it to build it up, but i would have eaten the broth we made yesterday on its own - this from the person who generally doesn't like chicken soup. it was a beautiful color, too - golden brown and luscious-looking. the broth was so full-bodied that all i had to do to it was add a little bit of salt. that's the stuff that people were talking about when they said that chicken soup is good for you when you're sick.

the banana bread was good, despite sitting on the counter for three hours before being baked. i brushed the bundt pan with butter and cocoa before i put the batter in, so it has a really great smoky chocolate crust to it. it's a bit less banana-y and more cake-y than normal, which makes it more attractive to carrien, and i have to admit, to me as well.