Chicken Soup for the Summer Soul

It's been a while, sorry. We finally got drywall up in the office plus did some much needed shopping for hardware, fabric, rugs, and tools. Now all we need to do is finish unpacking and maybe it'll start looking like a real home!

So I made a whole chicken yesterday for the first time and it was a bit of a nightmare. Tasted delicious, but it was quite the journey to get there. Anyways, Husband carved the bird and saved all the scraps for me to use for soup. And I decided today was a good day. Why make soup when it's freakin' humid & hot? Well, because I have piano lessons to teach this afternoon near the air conditioner, far away from the hot stove. Bazinga.

So I make soup differently than my sister makes soup which is weird because we both learned from my mother. Oh well. And I make soup differently than my mother-in-law makes soup which Husband used to be quick to remind me. However, he's come around to liking my soup too. [which is good, cause he wouldn't eat if he didn't.]

So to start, chop an onion, a couple stalks of celery (I do about 4), a couple big rabbit carrots (you know what I mean - I did about 4 too) so it's a mire-poix ratio of 1 to 1 to 1. Heat some oil on the stove in a huge soup pot and drop those babies in so they can cook for a bit. I pepper them only because I wind up over salting things I think and it's just better to let people salt their own soup - esp since I like to use parm cheese instead of salt at the end. Anyways, pepper it a bit and let them cook out for oh, 5ish minutes? Then drop your chicken bones in. I put the carcass [what a gross sounding word. carcass] in an the wings cause we never eat those. Then fill 'er up. With water. Seriously, fill the pot. Well not completely full, but you know, full enough. Then let it cook down and render out all that delicious chickenness. You'll have to let it simmer and cook for about an hour or so, longer if you want, shorter if you're in a rush. I usually let mine go for 1.5 to 2 hours. And be sure to scrape off the fat that rises to the surface. That's the gross stuff.

Once the stock has reached the color you like - it really is up to you. Take out all the bones. And try really hard to take out all the bones cause inevitably you'll forget one and find it when you're eating, but try. Those suckers are tiny. Then you can do a couple of things, you'll want to add chicken, but it's up to you how you do it. You can take raw chicken cut it to tiny pieces and poach it in the stock, you can take pre-cooked chicken from a previous meal and let it heat in the soup, or you can brown some chicken on the stove, par cook it, and let it cook the rest of the way in the soup. Whatever you want, add chicken next. Then I add my noodles to cook right in the soup. I use acine de pepe which are small noodles that are delicious and so made for chicken soup, but Husband doesn't always like them. He likes bigger noodles. So we've been experimenting lately. But today, I'm using acine de pepe. Then, secret ingredient... I whisk two eggs together and fiercely stir them into the soup. They're delicious. Serve with whatever you like - I like to put parmesan cheese on top of mine and eat with some delicious bread. Which I also made last week. Dang, I need to get more planning for next year done. I've been baking too much...

Oh well, bon appetit!