Chicken Soup

Recipe and pictures submitted by Anita Baker. (My Mom!)

Chicken Soup can cure a soul! There is just something about having fresh homemade Chicken soup on a rainy day, feeling kind of lousy day, or a cold snowy day. Mmm, the smell can just take me away . . .

Chicken Noodle Soup

Ingredients:

1 family size pack of chicken wings
3 bay leaves
1 lb. carrots (cleaned and cut into coin size pieces)
1 Medium sized onion (half to be put in with chicken pieces and other half with the rest of the veggies)
½ stalk celery (cleaned and cut into pieces)
16 – 32 oz. Chicken Stock

Directions:

In a large pot place the bay leaves, chicken (NOT frozen), and ½ onion (medium sized slices) in water so the entire amount of chicken is submerged in the water. Add a teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Allow this to boil.

Boil until the chicken is almost falling off of the bone. When finished remove the chicken and allow to cool on the side. Once cooled, you will shred the chicken from the bone. DO NOT DRAIN THE WATER. YOU WILL USE THIS SAME WATER FOR THE SOUP!!!

While the chicken is cooling add the chopped carrots, ½ stalk celery, small onion into the water. You should allow this to cook until the carrots and celery are tender. Add the Chicken stock. My Mom likes to use only ½ of the box of stock; but my Dad wishes she would use the entire amount. Depends on how much sodium your diet can take. You can always add salt to it when eating. (You tend to use more salt flavoring it yourself when eating so I would suggest using the stock)

When your chicken is done cooking; now is a great time to start boiling that water for the noodles. We do about half the box for an entire pot of soup. If you like more noodles in your soup then do more noodles.

My Mom recommends to leave the noodles on the side because if you plan on saving some for a meal later on; the noodles will absorb all the broth and it will be a dry soup when re-heating. When the noodles are cooked (al dente) drain and ladle broth from the vegetables into the pan on reserve and return the noodles to this.

Once the chicken is cool and you're able to handle it, take the meat from the bone. This will be rather easy to do as the chicken is almost falling off the bone to begin with.

After you have separated the chicken from the bone, you add it directly into the soup pan with the veggies. By this time the carrots and celery are probably tender and ready to eat!

Depending on if you have the noodles on the side or mixed directly with the soup, go ahead and make yourself a bowl! We usually have one ladle of noodles to two ladles of the chicken/veggie mix. Grade a little bit of Parmesan cheese over the top and enjoy!

I was raised eating this soup during the Fall and Winter months. And like all families we have traditions. As crazy as this sounds, we ALWAYS eat this soup with peanut butter bread. Try it out, you’ll LOVE it too. But I am not disappointed if you don’t because my husband thinks we’re absolutely nuts for doing so. I mean it’s not like we’re drinking chocolate milk with fried fish or something!

I made extra soup so I could freeze some and I did so by freezing it in a muffin tin. This muffin tin is the extra large muffins and the perfect size to heat up for Zoe (my toddler) or even two of them for an easy lunch for myself. After they freeze pop them out of the molds and store them in a baggy. You can do this trick with stews in the crockpot or any other soup/chowder that you look forward to having again without the hassle of making an entire batch!