soup = medicine

This is what your life looks like when you are looking through puffy watery eyes.

All blurry and miserable. Puffs and NyQuil, that is what got me through a full week of a massive head and chest cold.  I did my very best to keep it to myself and not pass it along to Dave. I slept in another room every night and washed my hands like a criminal trying to wash away the proof. It didn’t work. I’m over it and he has it in full force.

Luckily for him, I know how to make chicken soup! Stat! Quick, easy, tasty, cold-curing chicken soup.  And just in case the bug travels from this keyboard, through the internet, and onto you… you can make it too.  Get yourself to Costco, stock up on Puffs and NyQuil, and pick up one of their huge-breasted five-dollar rotisserie chickens.

Seriously, these are huge chickens with the breast meat weighing in at more than the entire amount of meat you’d get from a grocery store chicken! One and a third pounds of breast meat in the case of this particular bird!

I was actually going to title this post – “Big Breasts”, but considering all the spam I already get (the post that gets the most spam is titled “Manly Man Salad”) … yeah, I just don’t want to attract any more of that sort of attention!

So, back to the soup. Put in any vegetables you like or have on hand. I can’t stand cooked carrots, but Dave loves them, and since this soup IS for him – in went the carrots. I also had leftover sliced potatoes and a roasted poblano pepper – in they went. I have previously spoken of my affection for the under-rated and overlooked broccoli stems, they are in there. You get the point, whatever suits you and your family’s taste – put it in.

As for the chicken itself, I put in mostly dark meat and save those big breasts for sandwiches and such, you do as you please.  See – there is nearly a pound of dark meat for the soup.

After you pull off all the meat, you’ll use the chicken carcass to enrich a box of purchased chicken broth. You will be on your way to feeling at least 90% better in no time.

Homemade Rotisserie Chicken Soup

1 purchased (preferably from Costco) rotisserie chicken
4 cups chicken broth
6 cups water
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon whole peppercorns
1 medium onion, peeled and diced
1 cup peeled and sliced carrots
3 stalks celery, sliced
1 cup peeled and sliced broccoli stems
1 poblano pepper; roasted, peeled, seeded, and diced
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup cooked potato slices
2 cups egg noodles, uncooked
1/4 cup chopped parsley

Remove the skin from the chicken and discard. Pull the breast meat from the chicken and set it aside for another use. Pull off the remaining dark meat and shred it into bite-size pieces.

Place all the chicken bones in a large pot, then add the chicken broth and water to cover. Add the bay leaf and peppercorns and bring to a rolling boil. Boil for 20 to 30 minutes.

Strain broth into another large pot and discard the bones, bay leaf, and peppercorns.

Bring broth to a simmer and add the onion, celery, carrots, broccoli stems, poblano, Italian seasoning, plus a pinch of salt and pepper, and cook until the carrots are tender about 12 minutes.

Add potato slices and egg noodles and cook for approximately 9 minutes, or until the noodles are tender.

During the last 5 minutes of noodle cooking time, add the shredded chicken and parsley. Taste for seasonings and add more salt and pepper if needed.

Serves 6

Guess which bowl is for me… Yes, the “carrot-free” bowl is in the background.  That’s why I slice the carrots thick, so I can easily pluck them out! 🙂