Chicken Soup, awww.
Well, I'm still trying to kick this nasty cold, so my husband did me a favor and cooked up a big pot of chicken soup for me. Every time he makes soup, he just wings it, and it's different every time, so bear with me if I'm not very exact with the ingredients. It's soup! It's easy! This isn't the make-your-own-broth, spend-30-hours-skimming, chill-reheat-chill etc., kind of soup, it's the easy kind. Best when prepared by a loving family member, it's filling and only gets tastier overnight.
This recipe is based on me hovering over my husband's shoulder. You'll need:
Some carrots
Some celery
Some white onion
A carton (1 quart? I think.) of chicken (or vegetable) broth (free range/organic/hippie dippie preferred. also low sodium is good. we get ours at Trader Joe's.)
Any other vegetable you want (may I suggest zuchinni? yellow squash? potatoes will thicken the soup, but if you want them, throw them in. Peas?)
Chicken breast
Noodles, if you want noodles. (I like egg noodles in my soup.)
Random seasonings that everyone should have on their spice rack- chives, parsley, salt & pepper, whatever.
A few cloves of garlic
1 bay leaf
Chop all your veggies into whatever size you'd prefer. We like slightly bigger chunks. Finely chop your garlic, or smash it with one of those smashy things, if you want. If you do that, smash it over a bowl so all the juice doesn't disappear. Heat a large, deep pot to medium-high heat and saute veggies together until onions become glassy and they begin to soften. Don't cook all the way, though. Add a little salt & pepper. Dump in your broth and stir it up, heating to a boil. Throw in your bay leaf, season to taste with parsley, chive, anything you find delicious on your spice rack. Don't overdo it, keep tasting. Chop up your chicken breast and dump it in raw. Turn the heat down a little, cover your pot, and stir often. You can pretty much eat it whenever your chicken is cooked, but the longer it sits, obviously the better it will taste.
My husband likes to cook the noodles separately and add them at the end, but I think they taste kind of bland that way. I'd prefer to just add egg noodles towards the end and cook them directly in the broth. For this particular soup, he added a lot of lemon juice and lemon zest. It brightened up the flavor of the soup, but because I'm sick and I can hardly taste anything, all I could taste was the lemon. He loved it, I wasn't that into it. He's done a lot of different things with this basic soup- roasted red peppers (just roast your own in the oven, it only takes a few minutes and they're not as oily and mushy as the kind you get in a jar), zuchinni, whatever.
Obviously, if you are vegetarian, just omit the chicken and use vegetable broth instead of chicken. It's pretty easy. Don't forget to pull out your bay leaf at the end! Nobody wants to chomp into one of those.
Here's hoping I wake up well! And happy Mother's Day.
This recipe is based on me hovering over my husband's shoulder. You'll need:
Some carrots
Some celery
Some white onion
A carton (1 quart? I think.) of chicken (or vegetable) broth (free range/organic/hippie dippie preferred. also low sodium is good. we get ours at Trader Joe's.)
Any other vegetable you want (may I suggest zuchinni? yellow squash? potatoes will thicken the soup, but if you want them, throw them in. Peas?)
Chicken breast
Noodles, if you want noodles. (I like egg noodles in my soup.)
Random seasonings that everyone should have on their spice rack- chives, parsley, salt & pepper, whatever.
A few cloves of garlic
1 bay leaf
Chop all your veggies into whatever size you'd prefer. We like slightly bigger chunks. Finely chop your garlic, or smash it with one of those smashy things, if you want. If you do that, smash it over a bowl so all the juice doesn't disappear. Heat a large, deep pot to medium-high heat and saute veggies together until onions become glassy and they begin to soften. Don't cook all the way, though. Add a little salt & pepper. Dump in your broth and stir it up, heating to a boil. Throw in your bay leaf, season to taste with parsley, chive, anything you find delicious on your spice rack. Don't overdo it, keep tasting. Chop up your chicken breast and dump it in raw. Turn the heat down a little, cover your pot, and stir often. You can pretty much eat it whenever your chicken is cooked, but the longer it sits, obviously the better it will taste.
My husband likes to cook the noodles separately and add them at the end, but I think they taste kind of bland that way. I'd prefer to just add egg noodles towards the end and cook them directly in the broth. For this particular soup, he added a lot of lemon juice and lemon zest. It brightened up the flavor of the soup, but because I'm sick and I can hardly taste anything, all I could taste was the lemon. He loved it, I wasn't that into it. He's done a lot of different things with this basic soup- roasted red peppers (just roast your own in the oven, it only takes a few minutes and they're not as oily and mushy as the kind you get in a jar), zuchinni, whatever.
Obviously, if you are vegetarian, just omit the chicken and use vegetable broth instead of chicken. It's pretty easy. Don't forget to pull out your bay leaf at the end! Nobody wants to chomp into one of those.
Here's hoping I wake up well! And happy Mother's Day.
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