How Do You Feel About Lemon Chicken?

I like lemon chicken, don't you? And not just the kind you get at your local Chinese restaurant either. When I roast a chicken, my favorite thing is to stuff the cavity with onion, celery, and carrots (and put a layer on the bottom of the roasting pan too) and then rub lemon pepper seasoning under the skin. After that, I rub a little oil over the skin and sprinkle it with some sea salt, and then into the oven it goes.

Here's the thing though. How would lemon pepper chicken soup taste? Well, I'm here to tell you: not so great.

I always ("always" means probably about 90 percent of the time) use our leftover roasted chickens to make chicken soup. And most of the time, the leftovers consist of the carcass and breast meat from one of the breasts. And I've never had it turn out with a noticeable lemon flavor . . . until this past weekend. Really, really odd. And I can't figure out why--I really didn't do anything differently. The soup tasted kind of interesting at first, but by the time we were about half way done with our bowls, we were really tired of lemon.

Keeping in mind the rather large container of leftover chicken soup in my refrigerator, I decided today to ask some of my friends who have pretty good cooking sense what they'd do to cut the lemon flavor. All agreed it probably needed some kind of cream--half and half or maybe a little sour cream. And maybe just a touch of honey. Or perhaps a can of cream of chicken soup would help. So I came home and added a can of cream of chicken soup, a dollop of sour cream, and about a tablespoon of honey. Now it tastes pretty good. There's still a slight lemon flavor but not in a bad way, I think. Of course, I haven't eaten a bowl of it yet, so only time will tell if we can make it past the half-a-bowl point.

And speaking of leftovers, although I'm done cleaning out the Sweat Shop (I think!), I still have a couple things to give away. Here's tonight's giveaway:

These are parts that were leftover from the first bed-sized applique quilt I ever made--kind of a farm animal applique using Debbie Mumm fabrics. I'm sure I've shown the quilt on my blog before, but I'll have to take a photo or search to see if I can find an old one to show you. In the meantime, if you're interested in becoming the recipient of a bunch of star blocks, nine-patches attached to triangles, and a few other miscellaneous pieces, please leave me a comment saying you'd like to be entered. I'll draw a winner Wednesday night. The second place winner might get some lemon chicken soup--but only if it turns out that I still don't want it. Good luck!