Chicken Noodle Soup

I figured that since it's been so cold, and we've got leftover rotisserie chicken in the fridge, that we could use it up... and be warmer... by making some chicken noodle soup. Completely a comfort food.

Here's the recipe straight outta the cookbook:

1 4-5lb stewing chicken, cut up
6 cups of water
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 bay leaf
1 1/2 cup dried medium noodles
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped celery
2 Tablespoons fresh parsley

And that's cool, but y'know, sometimes recipe's are kind of like guidelines. They're just a starting point. Nothing ventured, nothing gained... at least when you're making soup. I wouldn't deviate if I was baking something, but with soup like this... pretty much anything goes. As long as you're not messing with the seasonings... like adding ground cloves or something like that.

So here's what I did.

I had a lot of chicken (4 thighs -raw, plus most of the breast meat from the rotisserie). So I upped the liquid. Pretty much I used the six cups of water the recipe called for, and then added some chicken stock that David had in the freezer, probably another three/four cups of stock.

And since the stock was already salted and seasoned, I didn't change any of the seasonings from the original recipe. Sure, a lot of salt is tasty, but the health effects negate anything good you can get from it. Anyway, then I added the raw chicken, bay leaf, and onion, and simmered it for about two hours. And I was generous with the onion. As any man should be.

While the chicken simmered, I was choppin' up other ingredients...
I personally like cooked veggies, especially carrots. So I doubled the amount of chopped carrots and celery. A good dose of vegetables have never hurt anybody.

After the chicken was done simmering, I removed the thighs and pulled the meat from the bones. I also chopped up the rotisserie. Then I skimmed whatever fat off the top of the broth that I could, and returned it to a boil.

Once again at a boil, I dumped in the carrots and celery. I'm only going to let this go for about 8 minutes, so after a minute or two I also dumped in the pasta since it'll only take about 6 to 7 minutes to cook.

Now, I had no idea what kind of noodle I was supposed to use in this soup. I don't really care for pasta much, so I'm not familiar with all of the different types of this or that... so I just walked up and down the noodle isle at the grocery and picked out a good thick, wide, whole wheat noodle that I thought would be noodle-ey enough. Yes, I just said noodle-ey. It worked great.

And since no soup is really complete without some sort of dipping bread, I grabbed some potato rosemary artisan bread. Rosemary? With chicken you say? Yes. Rosemary. It was good.

After the pasta and veggies cooked, I dumped in th chicken, let it heat through... and yes. We have dinner.

And not a bad dinner (soup) at that.