Making my house smell yummy for someone else!

Sunday I was asked if I would make soup for tomorrow night's Soup Supper at my Church and I said I would. But then I had to figure out what soup to bring. I wanted something folks would eat, something not too hard to make and something that wasn't all that expensive.

My answer? Homemade Chicken Soup

And to make it less expensive I'm making my Chicken stock myself...which is making my entire house smell yummy. :p

I bought 1 almost 4 pound chicken - raw and two soup veggie bags. These are bags of just what you need to make soup...two carrots, two stalks of celery, one onion (unless there are two small ones) some potatoes and some turnips. I usually don't use the turnips, but the other veggies are all handy to have and it's much more convienient than having to buy an entire package of carrots & a whole thing of celery that will just go bad.

So right now I have my cut up chicken in the slow cooker simmering with one package of veggies...I decided that since this is just the stock that I would try it with the turnips. I'm going to let this keep cooking until later and these veggies have given up all the goodness they can. Then I'll let everything cool this evening so I can cut up the chicken tomorrow and not burn myself.

Tomorrow I'll put the other onion in the pot with some oil and cook it a bit, then add the carrots & celery and the chicken stock. Cook that until the veggies are done and add the Noodles to cook them. The chicken will go in last since it's already completely cooked. I might add a touch of garlic...I don't know yet.

DH wants to go to the Soup Supper because he wants to eat all the yummy soups. Darly doesn't like soup (weird kid!) so if we go, she'll bring a sandwich.

Quick Chick and Noodle Soup
Recipe courtesy Rachael Ray

Prep Time: 15 min Inactive Prep Time: 0 min Cook Time: 15 min Level:
Easy Serves:
2 quarts of soup, 4 big bowls
Ingredients
2 tablespoons (2 turns around the pan) extra-virgin olive oil
2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
1 parsnip, peeled and chopped Omitted (didn't have any!)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
2 bay leaves, fresh or dried
Salt and pepper
6 cups good quality chicken stock (making it myself!)
1 pound (the average weight of 1 package) chicken breast tenders, diced (using the stock chicken)
1/2 pound wide egg noodles
A handful fresh parsley, chopped
A handful fresh dill, chopped
Directions
Place a large pot over moderate heat and add extra-virgin olive oil. Work close to the stove and add vegetables to the pot as you chop, in the order they are listed.
Add bay leaves and season vegetables with salt and pepper, to taste. Add stock to the pot and raise flame to bring liquid to a boil. Add diced chicken tenderloins, return soup to a boil, and reduce heat back to
moderate. Cook chicken 2 minutes and add noodles. Cook soup an additional 6 minutes or until noodles are tender and remove soup from the heat.
Stir in parsley and dill, remove bay leaves and serve. This is a thick soup. Add up to 2 cups of water if you like chicken soup with lots of broth.

note: since I'm using cooked chicken, I'm shuffling the recipe a bit.