Simple Comfort Food #324

Both of us are incredible phlegm factories this week, though the Boy has it worse with a deep chest cold that has him hacking like a consumptive Keats. Ironically, the weather is gorgeous and mild--and perfect for walking.

In the mean time, we've been subsisting on soups, tea and decongestants.

Here's a simple, cheap, and quick recipe for a delicious Greek soup: Avgolemono (or if, like me, and you pronounce it differently each time--lemon rice soup). Sadly, I never remember to write down amounts, so I'll estimate. This simple, meatless version of Avgolemono is really very flexible though, and hard to ruin.

Lemon Rice Soup

Ingredients:

3 eggs
several chicken bouillon cubes
cooked rice - leftover rice from Chinese takeout? Perfect!
lemon juice

The reason I use bouillon with this soup rather than a lovely homemade stock, or an organic thing out of a box is simple: Remember--the idea is that you're a snot zombie flailing around the kitchen for something warm and comfort foody. The easier the better. Also, for this soup, it has enough salt and flavor that it's not necessary to mess with spicing or salting the soup at all.

Put water in a pot and turn on medium high. Drop in bouillon cubes and dissolve them. Drop in the rice (I added about a cup, so there was some good substance to the soup). In a separate bowl, crack the eggs and whisk them together. When the soup is hot, but not quite boiling, pour in in the eggs and stir immediately. They'll cook right away, making the soup thicken. Add lemon juice to taste. Try a tablespoon, and work up from there. We like ours with a definite lemon tang to it.

You just made tasty soup in under 5 minutes! Take the bowl back to bed and read while eating it.