Chicken Noodle Soup

I’ve been a little under the weather for the past couple days. And by a little I mean a lot. For the past few days I’ve been completely and utterly miserable. I haven’t felt like cooking or doing much of anything. Today I finally started to feel a tad bit better. Well wouldn’t you know my husband is starting to feel sick now. Since I was on my own for dinner tonight, I decided I felt up to making us some chicken noodle soup. I made it pretty much the same way I made my chicken and rice soup but added a few more veggies and of course noodles instead of rice. Hopefully a couple bowls of this will have us both feeling better in no time.

Chicken Noodle Soup

2 chicken breasts
5-6 cups water
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 tsp thyme
2 chicken bouillon cubes
1/4 large onion, chopped
1/4-1/2 cup celery, chopped
1 cup frozen peas and carrots
1 1/2-2 cups egg noodles
salt and pepper to taste

Begin by boiling the chicken breasts in a large pot with water and chicken stock. Once the chicken is done, remove from the pot and set aside. Place vegetables, thyme, and chicken bouillon in the pot and simmer for 8-10 min until vegetables start to get tender. Shred the chicken with two forks and return it to the pot. Add the noodles and let simmer about 8 min until the noodles are done. Add more water as needed. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Soup for the Soul

You know how sometimes you just get a craving for something and you just have to have it? Well that’s what happened to me last week. I don’t know what triggered it. Maybe it was the chilly weather we’re having or this little cold I’ve been fighting off for a couple weeks now. Whatever it was, I was really craving chicken and rice soup. It’s funny because I don’t usually like chicken soup either. I started looking at recipes online and then just pretty much made up my own based on the things I wanted in my soup. It turned out to be a very good and filling soup. We had this tonight for dinner with the rolls in my previous post.

Chicken and Rice Soup

2 chicken breasts, trimmed
5 cups water
1 cup chicken stock (you could use broth instead)
1 tsp thyme
2 chicken bouillon cubes
1/4 large onion, finely chopped
1/4-1/2 cup celery, finely chopped (I’m not a huge fan of celery so you could add more)
1 cup carrots, finely chopped
3/4 cup long grain white rice, uncooked
salt and pepper to taste

Begin by boiling the chicken breasts in a large pot with water and chicken stock. Once the chicken is done, remove from the pot and set aside. Place vegetables, thyme, and chicken bouillon in the pot and simmer for 15-20 until vegetables are tender. Shred the chicken with two forks and return it to the pot. Add the rice and let simmer about 20 min until the rice is done. Add more water as needed. Add salt and pepper to taste.

If only it tasted as good as it looks!

I have been dying to try Paula Deen’s Lady and Sons Chicken Pot Pie for a while now. When we were in Savannah, GA this past April, we actually ate at the Lady and Sons restaurant. I didn’t get the chicken pot pie there, but I saw several people order it and remember thinking it looked so good. I was very happy when I found the recipe for it on foodnetwork.com. So I finally decided to try it tonight. I followed the recipe exactly, except I cooked it longer than it said to at the end to make sure if was heated through. When I took my first bite, all I could say was “yuck!”. It was just too bland and the flavor wasn’t all that great either. But I decided to post it anyway to show that not every dinner or recipe always turns out the way you hoped it would. I think it’s a very pretty chicken pot pie, but I think I’ll stick to my regular old chicken pot pie in the future. Who knows, maybe it was something I did or didn’t do. Someone else might have more luck with it than I did. : P

My cooking ventures today weren’t a total bust though. I made my own chicken stock for the first time ever. Here’s how I made it.

Chicken Stock

1 roasted chicken carcass (bones), skin and meat removed
1-1 1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 1/2 tsp whole peppercorns
1 1/2 cups carrots, cut into chunks
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 an onion
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
water, enough to cover all other ingredients

Place first six ingredients in a large stock pot and cover with water and chicken broth. Simmer over low heat for about 3 hrs or so. Strain liquid into a bowl and skim fat off the surface. Place pre-measured amounts in individual containers to freeze for easy use in later recipes.

*I froze mine in 1 cup portions. I got about 9-10 cups of stock.