(This post is aimed at my co-workers. There will be insider-ism.
Apologies. Feel free to ask for clarification.)
Gave the recipe on page 2 of the current flyer a shot.
TL;DR? It was easy and delicious. Recommended as a Try At Least Once, minimum.
I hate buying pre-made food, as many of you already know, but this seemed like one of those times where I had to let reality and rationality rear their ugly heads: I am not likely to make chicken soup from scratch anytime soon, so, okay, pay for two tubs of the Kettle Cooked Chicken Soup (Flyer item, in the Fresh section), be glad about the 20% discount, and let's move on.
Pro tip. Open the tubs of soup in your kitchen sink. Well, remove the outer lid wherever, but immediately after that, put the tubs DIRECTLY into the sink. Do not try to remove the inner liner thing on the counter, or at a table, or in your hands, free-standing anywhere. The plastic film is about as easy to remove as BoJo at ten minutes past nine, and whether you are able to use the pull tab (I was one for two on this) or have to deploy your boxcutter at home, you will be glad you did put the tubs in the sink: spatter is inevitable, in both cases. This is supposed to be a ten-minute meal. You don't want to double that time with the thankless task of mopping up a slightly fatty liquid.
Okay, tubs are open.
Yes, I opened them in the sink, wiseass. I have, occasionally, learned from experience, and this is one of those times I was able to apply it.
Dump them into ... whoa. Not sure what kind of kitchen the people who wrote this recipe live in, but forget the "medium." You want a LARGE saucepan. We're talking three pints of liquid, just from the soup tubs alone ...
... and you know that the gnocchi is going to swell, at least a little bit ...
... and then there's the cream. (This is, per the recipe, a box of the shelf-stable heavy cream. If you are, like me, no longer buying much from the dairy section, but still occasionally interested in creaming up a sauce, so to speak, this definitely seems like a pantry item worth adding to your mental bookmarks.)
And also, there will be stirring.
The directions did not say whether to cover the saucepan or not. I chose not to. I am paranoid (this will shock approximately none of you) about cooking anything with cream, so I wanted to be able to see what was going on. And what does "heat to a simmer" mean, anyway? To me, "simmering" means just a hint of bubbles, even after stirring. So, I was a little poised.
Once it got to where it looked like this ...
... I turned the heat down to way low. Tasting it at this point told me that the temperature was already there, so I didn't think the recipe's direction of ten more minutes of heating was in order; I thought, maybe a couple more minutes of slow heat would help things thicken or coalesce or whatever the right word is.
Pro tip #2/note to self: there is something about heating liquids involving cream that make them waaay hotter than, say, anything cooked in just plain boiling water, like rice or pasta or vegetables. Do your tasting with care, here.
Turned off the heat, covered it, will let it sit for a couple of minutes. Real cooks will very often tell you to let things rest for a bit before serving. (Also, mouth still a little sensitive from last tasting.)
And now, we have ... a bowl of soup! Dinner time!
P.S. About the pairing: My habit, when wine-shopping, is to get a few of the old reliables, and to get a few that I haven't tried. In the latter area, I am always looking for something cheap, that I've never heard of, in the hopes of discovering that next Great Buy. What's in the glass pictured above has nailed that from Day 1, and continues to do so, and the real beauty of it is that despite my massive influencer clout, the price has remained unchanged from the first time I bought it. It's a Cabernet Sauvignon, from Casas Patronales, in Chile, and you can get it for $12/bottle. At Station Liquors, across from the Mamaroneck Train Station, at least. It's not fall down fainting from amazement good, but it is whoa, I'm really happy to pay this price for a bottle of plonk that more than boosts a quick dinner after work good.
Also, great logo.
P.P.S. The recipe says "serves 4-6." I can attest that you will have 4-6 more or less average bowlfuls on hand. Whether that will actually serve 4-6 discrete *people* is ... an open question, to put it politely. I am on my third bowl, as we speak. This most definitely speaks to the goodness of the output of the recipe, but does leave me wondering, again, about the TJ kitchen, where, it now seems, not only are the saucepans massive, but the stomachs are tiny.
P.P.P.S. About the garnish mentioned in the flyer recipe: ain't nobody got thyme for that.
P.P.P.P.S. (Translation: Forgot to buy.)
