The Perfect Lunch on a Cold, Snowy Day

On Friday, I bought a roasting chicken at the grocery store. On Saturday, we baked it to delicious, falling-off-the-bones perfection, and we ate all we wanted of piping hot chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and stuffing. On Sunday, we had chicken salad. On Monday, we made soup.

Fresh, hot, homemade chicken soup is one of my husband's specialties, and I don't know of anyone who makes it better. I am the chief slicer/dicer, but he is the chef. So I chopped up plenty of white meat chicken, and potatoes and onions and carrots, and he added water and seasonings and noodles at the appropriate time. And then, like magic: SOUP!

I don't know if you've heard about our blizzards in the northeastern U.S., but we had one in full swing on this day. It was supposed to simply graze us in central Pennsylvania, and then head on up to the New England states, where it was destined to wreak havoc. (The timing was good for me, as I already had Monday scheduled as a day to work from home.)

What actually happened is that our area got a bunch more snow than we expected. We had anticipated a few inches, but at the end of the day when my husband and I went out to begin the task of shoveling the driveway, it was clear that we'd received more like eight to ten inches of the white stuff! We shoveled about half of the driveway before giving up and heading back inside.

And then it continued to snow overnight, and it added a few more inches, just for good measure. (Yes, we're doing fine; thanks for asking. The blizzard part has mostly ended, though it continues to add some light snow, even as I type this. I promise to post a snowy scene for you to enjoy tomorrow.)

It was snowing like crazy outside when I took this photo. Have I mentioned that snowy weather gives me a ferocious hunger, whether I am out shoveling or not? So for lunch, we had chicken noodle soup, toasted cheese sandwiches (note the melted cheese sort of messily sliding out the side there - mmmmm, cheeeeeese), corn chips, and pretzels. Nothing like a nice hot meal of comfort food on a cold and snowy wintry day!

The tune to accompany this is a silly one. The song is by Weird Al Yankovic, and it's called Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch. The video was not actually made by Weird Al himself, but I thought it was funny. (And of course Weird Al's version is a parody of the Cyndi Lauper tune, Girls Just Want To Have Fun.)