Tonight's Soup

I made the best soup ever tonight. I don't normally brag up my cooking (What? Well, excuuse me! Scruffy just remarked I do it all the time - well, I do share all my failures, so it balances out, right?) Anyway, ignoring that furball-hacking feline, let me continue...

Remember the barbequed chicken from Saturday? After eating it for dinner on Saturday and several snacks on Sunday, there wasn't a whole lot left. Since tomorrow (today, now) is garbage day, it would be a good time to get rid of the carcass, so I thought I'd debone it, add the chicken to some chicken stock and throw in some noodles for soup. However, much to my surprise, I was a little light in the chicken stock area.

So, undaunted, (well, maybe a little daunted) I carefully removed all the barbeque sauce-coated skin (didn't want that taste). Then, I got all the meat off I could (maybe two or three cups worth). Got my medium stock pot and threw all the bones in it. Then added the celery I had that was a bit old and limp (shut up, Scruffy!), took two medium onion and cut them in half (not peeling them) a shallot that was starting to get soft (I'm not kidding, Scruffy!) and three cloves of garlic (smashed, but peels and all), a handful of those baby carrots (again, getting a bit old) a good clump of parsley (stems and all), two bay leaves, salt and a lot of pepper. Added cold water, covered the pot and brought it to boil.

Once boiling, I removed the cover and lowered the temperature to medium-high (to concentrate the flavors) and let it boil for over an hour. When it was close to being done, chopped a medium onion and diced some fresh celery. Put olive oil and butter into a saute pan and cooked the onions and celery. Finely chopped some more parsley, and peeled a carrot, then shredded it.

Poured the chicken stock through a strainer, and discarded everything but the broth. Tasted it and decided it needed at bit more salt and a whole lot of pepper. Added the onions and celery, the shredded carrot and the cut up chicken meat. Brought it to a boil, then added a whole bag of wide egg noodles and cooked for eight minutes.

Fantastic!