Wait, before I get into the soup we need to talk about the Superbowl. I am SO, SO, SO glad the Packers won. This means that Graham Harrell, the former Texas Tech quarterback that led us to our best football season ever, gets a Superbowl ring! Since the Superbowl was on my birthday, I had some close friends and family over and I cooked up a big feast. The pictures I took are on my Mom's camera and I'm working on getting them on my computer so I can do a post about the food!
It was a good game, but I didn't like halftime. I don't really like the Black Eyed Peas because, in my opinion, their songs are SO REPETITIVE. Especially that "Tonight's Gonna Be A Goodnight" song. They just sing the same words over and over and over and over.... you get the idea. However, the low point of the game was when they showed Cameron Diaz feeding A-Rod. SICK. I thought Cam was smarter than that.
Okay, on to the food! This recipe is adapted from one I found on Deep South Dish. I, of course, changed it a tad :)
Chicken Noodle Soup
1 rotisserie chicken, shredded
2 (32 oz) cartons of reduced sodium chicken broth
2 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 of a large onion, chopped
1/2 c. chopped carrots
1/2 c. chopped celery
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. dried parsley
1/2 tsp. paprika
1 bay leaf
1 package of egg noodles, or any kind of pasta
3-4 tbsp. heavy cream
salt & pepper
Melt the butter and olive oil in a large dutch oven over medium heat. Once those are melted together, add the chopped onion, celery and carrots. You want these to cook for about 4-5 minutes, or until kind of soft.
See? The onions are translucent.
On a side-note, I nearly went blind chopping this onion. Seriously. My eyes have never stung so bad. I had to step out of the kitchen and sit on the couch with my eyes shut for a good 5 minutes before I could go back to that stupid onion. I remember watching Paula Deen one day and she was wearing these.
I NEED THESE!
They're called "Onion Goggles". Besides the fact that they're pink, they keep the oniony-ness out of your eyes while you're chopping them! Genius!! You can buy them on Paula's website.
Anyways, back to the soup. Once your vegetables are tender, add your garlic and cook about one minute, until fragrant. Then add the chicken stock and your spices.
In go some of the spices...I know I said one bay leaf, but one was so small so I added another.
If my hand looks a little pink, it's because I spent yesterday rolling some red velvet cake balls and they stained a little bit :) Let the soup simmer for a good 30 minutes to 1 hour with the lid on over medium heat. This helps all the flavors come together. Meanwhile, shred your chicken up. I had a little helper watching closely...
My kitty, Purrcilla, lickin' her lips after I slipped her a piece of chicken!
Okay, once the soup has simmered for a while, add your chicken in and pop the lid back on. Cook the egg noodles, or other pasta, according to the package directions in a separate pot. Once the pasta is done, add the cream to the soup. This will make it rich, delicious, and not so brothy.
Creamy!
Now, at this point you can add all your noodles in, which I did last time I made this. We had some leftover and while the leftovers waere in the fridge the noodles soaked up a lot of the liquid and became nasty and gummy. So this time I just let everyone put their own noodles in and kept them separately in the fridge.
Hey, don't forget to take our your bay leaf!
I promise that you'll never want the canned stuff again. Okay, that's probably a lie because we all know that when we're sick and want chicken noodle soup that we do NOT want to cook anything, but I still want you to try this!
I love those pink glasses - I've never seen them before! You can always count on Paula :o)
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