Week #2 - Chicken Noodle Soup

Well, it's only the second week into my soup foray, but I felt confident enough in myself to kind of make up my own recipe. A bit ambitious for a beginner cook? Maybe a little, but it turned out very nicely I think. I don't normally go for chicken noodle soup because I think it's kind of boring. However, it is a good basic to know how to make, and I had a bunch of egg noodles left over, so I decided that I would try it.

I looked at several recipes online for this, but I ended up basing my soup on Jean's Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup from allrecipes.com. I also went to a local farmers market to look for ingredients, and figured I would just add whatever veggies they had that looked good (for those of you in Indy, I went to the Trader Point Creamery Farmers Market). The ingredients I got from the farmers market were:

Pic courtesy Traders Point Creamery

carrots
onions
shitake mushrooms
kale
dried ginger root powder






I talked to my mother-in-law, who is a great cook, and she suggested that I boil a whole chicken instead of just chicken breasts like I had planned to get a better flavor, so I tried that. What I found was that my chicken cutting skills are sub-par. The chicken looked pretty mutilated, but I got the meat off, so that's what counts, right? I saved about half the chicken to freeze, shredded the rest with a fork, and added it back to the strained water that I boiled it in (about 10 cups of water I think?). I also added about 5 chicken bullion cubes.

I cut up my veggies, excluding the kale, and including some celery I had left over. All cut up together, it ended up being about a cup and a half of veggies. I added some spices that I had. The online recipe suggested ginger, which is why I got the ginger powder. I also added some rosemary, salt, pepper, a little bit of chili powder, and some Chef Paul's Poultry Magic seasoning. How much? I don't know, I just kept adding stuff until it tasted good. I then added about 2/3 bag of egg noodles. After the noodles cooked, I added the kale, and let it simmer for a little while.

Pic courtesy of My Dining Room :)

I think my soup turned out great for as much messing with it as I did. It's still a bit boring to me, but I think that's just the nature of chicken noodle soup. I was pretty happy with my seasoning, and only had to add a little salt after I started eating it. I was also happy with my random farmers market additions, and that my cooking intuition is getting better with things like that. I don't know that I would make this soup very often, just because it's not my favorite kind, but I'll keep it in mind next time my husband or I get sick.  :)

Rating: 3/5