If you would be interested in getting this as a high Quality Print please let me know. She was scanned in at 600DPI so it can even be out on a canvas!
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you do in life is an art. You don't have to be able to paint or draw, just have the artistic eye to find the beauty and grace in everything. Even if its' the fact that you can put you pants on better than anyone else. There is even a certain grace in getting dressed. Ok I digress but its true; life is art and art is life. With that in mind this is how I make my soups. I don't follow rescipes but more like splash color in a pot. The first thing I do when determining what kind of soup I want to make is determine a theme. I wanted chicken soup because it makes me feel better and Rosemary not only because I love it but with a cold my sense of smell and taste is of course effected and the Rosemary is pungent enough to be able to taste. Because I make soup like I paint. A bit of that and a bit of this I will do my best to put it into a recipe for you. In your Crock: Small crock? Or large? Add water* to slightly over half of the crock. Next you will add chicken bullion or *replace water with Chicken soup stock. I have only used chicken stock once or twice and find it to be too bland for my taste. When I lived in the Chicago I was able to find this wonderful soup base called L.B. Jamison's that is more a paste then a bullion. Unfortunately I can't find it in the south but I did find it on Amazon and now buy 6 jars at once to have on hand. I can't live without this stuff! I add approximately 2 heaping tablespoons to the water and 3 to four for the larger crock. You can add more later if its needed by spooning and mixing it in. http://amzn.to/1AUdxsi
Broiling the breasts to near finish leave them slightly pink as it will finish cooking in the crock. After taking out of the broiler let it set for five minutes before cubing. This is to keep the chicken juicy and moist. Add to the crock. In the crock with the soup base I added: Two fresh tomatoes washed and diced. 1 large sprig of fresh rosemary from the bush I planted outside my home. Now you can use fresh from the store or if you do not have fresh rosemary growing you can use 2 tablespoons of dried rosemary. I did not cut the rosemary off the stem as you will remove the rosemary sprig from the soup about halfway through cooking. If any comes off the stem into the soup that is perfectly fine. The juice of one fresh lemon or two tablespoons of real lemon juice. One tablespoon of parsley fresh or dried. 1 teaspoon of thyme, and sage. Now take a whiff of these wonderful spices. Wonderful and goes with the theme. Anything else you want to ass you can! Remember there is no right or wrong in making soup. I also added about a teaspoon of celery salt. Next I took a whole onion, four carrots and three stalks of celery. Chopped them to a small/medium size and sauteed them in olive oil over med heat. The idea is to cook them down a little bit to help the cooking process go faster. When the onions start to turn clear at the edges, remove from heat and add contents of skillet to crock. I then added one can of chick peas and one cup of tomato juice. The tomato juice is only because I had about a cup left and didn't want to waste it so added it to the soup. You don't have to add this if you do not want, but if you like to have a slight tomato base; which goes great with the rosemary and lemon, you can use one can of chopped tomatoes having the same effect. Be sure if you do though to substitute it for the fresh cut tomatoes. Now you can pretty much add anything you want at this point some frozen peas and corn too. I added both. Ok then! Everything added? Great next cover your crock and let it do its thing. About 3 hours in test the broth. Determine if the Rosemary as infused your soup if so you may now remove it. You can also add more bullion/base at this point if needed. Once your soup comes to a boil you can add rice, or macaroni. I added 1 cup of dry macaroni noodles. Adding it un~cooked will do a couple of things. The vitamins in the noodles/rice wont be rinsed off by cooking it separately and the starch will help to thicken your soup slightly giving it a chunkier texture. Your soup is done when your carrots are soft and your noodles and or rice are cooked. Serve with a fresh sprig or rosemary on top and a grilled cheese sand-which or crackers! Makes about 6-8 good size servings. Tips:
They recommend that someone like me; meaning you have asthma, recurring bronchitis, pneumonia and fun stuff along that line; get a flue shot. Except what if you are one of those people who get sick from the flu shot. Dr.'s and pharmacists tell you that it can't happen? That the virus form they give you in the shot is either inactive or so minute that it wont give you the flu? NOT TRUE. Tell that to the poor 25 year old California nurse who died recently after having only been married 4 months. As required by the hospital she worked for and regulations in California she had to get the flu shot. Within days of receiving it she came down with the flu then to pneumonia then sepsis. It was the sepsis in the end that killed her. All from yes, a flu shot. What I find interesting is that they have specified in some states like New York that the shot is mandatory for Hospital personnel unless they have medical issues. Ok hmmm now I don't know about you but if you "Can't" get the flu from the flu shot why would they have a specification like that. Doing a search on it in Google I typed in "can you get the flu from the flu shot" here is the response that pulls up and is from the Government website Flu.gov. "No, you cannot get the flu from the flu shot or the nasal spray. The flu shot contains inactivated (killed) flu viruses that cannot cause illness. The nasal spray contains weakened live viruses. The weakened viruses only cause infection in the cooler temperatures found in the nose." So tell that to the poor girl from California who was rarely sick a day in her life now gone from yes a flu shot. On WebMD they state this and I quote: "Flu Myth #3: The flu vaccine can give you the flu. This is the flu myth most likely to drive experts bonkers. “There is simply no way that the flu vaccine can give you the flu,” says Hay. “It’s impossible.” Why? For one, injected flu vaccines only contain dead virus, and a dead virus is, well, dead: it can’t infect you. There is one type of live virus flu vaccine, the nasal vaccine, FluMist. But in this case, the virus is specially engineered to remove the parts of the virus that make people sick. Despite the scientific impossibility of getting the flu from the flu vaccines, this widespread flu myth won’t die. Experts suspect two reasons for its persistence. One, people mistake the side effects of the vaccine for flu. While side effects to the vaccine these days tend to be a sore arm, in the past, side effects often felt like mild symptoms of the flu. Two, flu season coincides with a time of year when bugs causing colds and other respiratory illnesses are in the air. Many people get the vaccine and then, within a few days, get sick with an unrelated cold virus. However, they blame the innocent flu vaccine, rather than their co-worker with a runny nose and cough." Can anyone explain then why every time not once, twice but three times within days of getting the flu shot I came down with a horrible case of the flu. First time I got the shot I worked in retail. One would think, well you were exposed to lots of customers etc. Actually no. I worked at Kinko's on the night shift from 10 PM til 10 AM and I was the sole employee at the time on the night shift. I ran all the night time jobs and took care of the occasional customer. Maybe one or tow would come n that late at night especially in a Chicago winter wen I got the shot. My exposure to people was very minimal. The flu requires cold to continue to spread. It thrives in temperatures of 41 degrees and slows down in temperatures of 68 degrees. Working at Kinko's the temperature was very warm 84-90 degrees in my working area and very dry because of all the machinery. 8 Computers, over 10 copy machines, (three industrial sized) as well as many other machines that were constantly running kept the temperature in a status the flu could not possibly survive or at least thrive. My concern of course was because of the Asthma, bronchitis and recurring pneumonia that I better get the shot. So I did. Three days later I called my sister in-law because I was panicking, couldn't breathe, couldnt swallow, couldnt talk. Wheezing I barely could get out over the phone that I was sick and needed help. She rushed over and took me to the emergency room. What they found was I had a serious case of the flu, an abscess in my throat which was raw and bleeding, and bronchitis which had already gone to walking pneumonia. Talk about acceleration. I was given shots of antibiotics, steroids and a breathing treatment. Three flu's later, within three days of the shots mind you, I now have permanent damage to my eye-site from the severe coughing. Already near blind at birth in one eye, this was a devastating development. Since every year I get a cold around Christmas and every time it goes to bronchitis and pneumonia assisted with shots of steroids, Zpaks and more. I decided to get the pneumonia shot. Why? Well I figured since the pneumonia is a side effect of a virus and not a virus of it own why not try it. I got the shot back in October 2014 and guess what? No side effects none. A good thing too. As New years rolled around I got a very bad cold on New years Eve and went to bed around 8PM. I have been sick fighting this cold since. As the cold went into its fun bronchitis stage it stayed very slight. I have needed my inhaler and some cold meds and nasal sprays but for the first time in 20 years I didn't need the assistance of Dr.s to overcome a common cold. No steroid shots, no Zpak, no infected raw throats and best of all NO pneumonia! Angels sing...I hear it can you? The art of getting better has been a much better experience with no Dr.s involved and no exposure at the Dr.'s office to more sick people. Now 20 days later I am still fighting it off and have been super weak but have been assisted by making homemade Rosemary Lemon Chicken Soup, and able to use over the counter remedies; mostly homeopathic ones to over come it. End thoughts? Flu shot? NO! Pneumonia shot? YES! If you are like me with chronic illness, asthma, bronchitis and such? It was a life saver this year. My lungs for once don't feel like I went swimming and inhaled all the water. Anyway You will see more activity as I start to feel better and I will post my Soup recipe for those interested in another posting as I start to get back to the Apothecary series now that the Holidays are over. 
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