Toto, I don't think we're eating Campbell's anymore!

Soup.

I've discovered that when you live in the North (aka frozen tundra), soup is a welcome meal for 9 months out of the year.

Granted, it's been unseasonably warm. We still have green grass. But still. Soup is delicious.

A few weeks ago I went back to Gainesville, FL, to attend a friend's wedding. During this time, I fell ill. We still aren't sure what I fell ill with, but the newest idea (per the medical professionals) is gall bladder. Beside the point. I stayed with possibly the most wonderful human being on the earth, Betsy. Betsy and her family are, quite possibly, the most hospitable, loving people this side of Heaven. And Betsy made this AMAZING CHICKEN SOUP. Seriously amazing. And she, because she is also amazing, gave me the recipe.

This will take a little time. Do it on a weekend, when you are around but doing stuff (it doesn't really have to be watched). One of those pots with the strainer built in helps--we don't have one, and a colander worked fine. This is the adapted recipe, using what I could find/had on hand, but I have also included things from the original.

Chicken and Veggie Soup

3-4lbs chicken pieces, skin on (bones too!)*
2 carrots, sliced (you can leave the skin on if you wash them)
2 stalks of celery, sliced (left this out, didn't want to buy a huge head)
1 onion, cut into chunks
1 1/2 tsp salt
8 whole peppercorns
1 bay leaf
2 qts (8 cups) water
2 potatoes, peeled and diced small
1 1/2 cups frozen veggies (the mix--corn, peas, carrots, limas)
Rice or pasta

*The original recipe called for a 4-5 lb stewing chicken, cut up, but only had you use half the meat. I used all the meat of mine*

1. Add water, chicken, carrots, celery, onion, salt and peppercorns to a large stockpot. Simmer 1-2 hours.
2. Strain broth, remove chicken and discard everything else.
3. When chicken is cool enough to handle, remove skin and discard. Remove the meat from the bones and chop the meat, discarding the bones.
4. Add chicken back to broth. Add potatoes. Simmer 15 minutes.
5. Add frozen veggies and pasta (broken into smallish pieces) or rice, simmer 15 minutes until veggies are hot and pasta/rice is tender.
6. Salt/pepper to taste.

Okay, so here's what happened. We planned to make this christmas--but ended up realizing we wouldn't have time to eat it! So I put the chicken in the fridge in baggies, and put the broth in the fridge just in it's pot. Fast forward to Tuesday. The fat of the broth solidified on the top--you just skim it off, no big. Only issue was I felt it may have taken away some of the volume of the broth, so I added some canned broth that I had (SHAME I know). I don't think if I made it all fresh at once I would have had to do this. I also think I used a little too much pasta, and it absorbed a bit too much of the broth, as when I was putting into containers to freeze, I ran short of liquid (enter more store-bought broth). I would say less than 1/3 package of thin spaghetti noodles, or maybe 1/2 cup rice, would do it.

Vegetarian? No problem! Make the broth without the chicken (you may want to increase the amount of carrots, celery and onion, and maybe add other veggies or peels as well), and you would have veggie noodle or veggie and rice soup!

This was delicious. It will definitely crop up again in the Roubos household!


Much thanks to Betsy for passing this recipe on to me! And taking care of me when I thought I was dying.