For what ails ya

I have a profound new admiration for food photographers. This is the best I can muster at the moment. But at the risk of turning your appetite in the wrong direction, I decided to run this picture of my Get Well Soon Cheesy Lemon Chicken Soup Delight, as part of a new, hopefully recurring feature in which I’ll share some of my favorite recipes with you. (I'll keep working on the camera thing, I promise). Yes, your City Mouse loves to cook, and is looking forward to moving out of her postage-stamp-sized Manhattan kitchen and into a real Brooklyn EIK with miles, I tell you, miles! of counter space in just a few weeks.

This zippy, therapeutic, tastier-than-it-appears soup, which I came up with a few years ago, has most recently helped me through my Last Cold of 2006/First Cold of 2007, which kept me whimpering on the couch covered in used Kleenex for much of the past week.

But I did rally to make my soup, which really only takes 15 minutes or so! In case you suffer the same misfortune – or if you’re just in the mood for a satisfying sort-of-homecooked quick meal – I’ve outlined the recipe below. Chicken broth, lemons and garlic for your health, plenty of cheese and pasta to soothe your self-pity, and some French herbs and artichoke hearts to make you feel civilized. Bon appetit!

You need:

About a tablespoon of olive oil

Two or three cloves of fresh garlic, bruised or chopped into big pieces

One can artichoke hearts

Some dried herbes de Provence

One container store-bought low sodium chicken broth (I like Swanson Organic)*

Package of spinach fettuccine (nests, if you can find them – DeCecco is good)

One or two lemons

Shredded parmesan cheese

Black pepper

Flat-leaf parsley, optional

One or two medium-large pots for pasta/soup

In a large pot, heat up about a tbsp. of oil and add the garlic, sauteeing on medium for a minute or so. Drain, rinse and break up the artichoke hearts and add to the pot with a heaping tsp. of the herbes de Provence. Sautee for another minute or so and dump in the broth. Raise the heat and bring up to a simmer, adding more herbs if you like more flavor.

At this point, you have two options: the quick two-pot method or the slower one-pot. For the two-pot, bring some salted water to a boil while you're doing the above and add about two nests of the pasta, cooking til almost al dente. Once it's done, drain and add it to the soup pot. Or for the one-pot method, just dump those nests into your soup, add a cup or so of water, bring up the heat and boil until the pasta is done.

Once you've got your broth and pasta together, you can start adding lemon juice to taste (I add at least a half a lemon) and as much black pepper as you like.

Ladle the soup and noodles into a big bowl and top with lots of shredded parmesan, plus another squirt of lemon juice. If you want to be real fancy you could pretty it up with some flat-leaf parsley, too. Best served with a good baguette or crunchy roll with butter and garlic. And a good strong hot toddy if you're really sick. Or even just sort of sick.

*oh sure, if you're one of those people who keeps homemade chicken stock on hand in the freezer, or if you only have or prefer only to eat vegetable-type broth, use that, why don't you.