You are not going to believe this...

So I know you think that I am terribly patchy with my posting lately but I have a brilliant excuse. I have just been discharged from St. Vincent's Hospital after 3 days with a wonderfully painful broken ankle. I was rushed to ER on Wednesday at noon after breaking my ankle at UCD. It was broken in three places and dislocated. Oh the horrors of it all. I have never broken anything before and this was surely a freak accident. I was simply walking down some stairs and stepped onto my left leg, I then shifted my weight onto my right and stepped on that leg. While standing I heard a crack and I realised, "Oh my God, I just broke my ankle". I then realised it was probably in my best interest to fall to the ground screaming. My ankle was contained by my boots and was at a 70 degree angle from my body (now this is not my foot but actually slightly above my ankle). To make a long story short I had a metal plate and several pins inserted permanently into my ankle and have one big screw to be removed after 8 weeks. Until that time I am not allowed to put any weight on that leg. So I am in effect house bound because my job entails an hour commute on 2 buses in each direction. There is no way I can manage that. I am even tired just coming in from the front room. My new command post has been installed in the corner of the kitchen. Now I can dine and then roll over and sleep. All in one! Ok will fill you in more later, I am in pain now and have to rest.

The Soup that Keeps on Giving

For the past couple days I have been eating a homemade soup. For some reason when I am sick - just confirmed by the doctor, no not swine flu but a throat infection - I stuff myself with homemade soup, tea, and cinnamon toast (toast with butter, cinnamon and sugar- a PBA family recipe). I used to drink hot flavoured gelatin, a cure suggested by my grandmother which probably came into being during the depression days but that no longer makes the list.

My soup, when I was healthy started off as a search for turkey albondigas (note the previous post was spelled incorrectly for all you Spanish sticklers out there...). As I googled I came across hundreds of recipes claiming to have the moist-est meatballs. This appears to be a common problem with turkey mince. My solution when I make my meatloaf is usually to mix in some yummy spicy sausage. One recipe I came across suggested bread crumbs soaked in milk. What the hell I thought, let's give it a go. In went the turkey, milk soaked bread, onions, garlic, a lightly beaten egg, a splash of olive oil and some various spices including my new smoked paprika I purchased en Espana. Next I fried them up in a little olive oil. Note I am totally against frying - it just seems so pointless when things can be baked, grilled, broiled, boiled, stir fried, you get the picture. But I think meatballs are probably the one food on earth that really require frying. I didn't cook them all the way through, rather just browned the outside. I then added them to a pot of boiling broth (stock cube, onion, carrots and chopped spinach). After vigourously simmering for quite some time I added some tiny farafellini pasta. Okay so the meatballs weren't super moist but the unexpected bonus was this lovely really meaty stock. I have been making stock for years but never NEVER have I had something like this. Usually I throw in a whole chicken carcass with some good thigh meat but it has never turned out so flavoursome. For the past couple of days I have been replenishing the broth with water and the stock is still lip smacking. I am hoping that I will be cured by the time this soup runs out, although I still have at least a day or two left in it.