Souper!

Today I made chicken noodle soup for the first time. I didn't have a recipe, but I figured I didn't need one. This also marks the first time I ventured into the kitchen with a "eh, it'll work out," attitude. It went something like this:

I splashed some olive oil into our giant All-Clad stock pot. I heated it up, and got some minced garlic going. Once that was happy, I added about half a diced onion, about 5 ribs of celery, and about 5 carrots. I let them work out their feelings and added a generous splash of dry white wine because they looked like they needed a drink. I popped the lid on to let them simmer nicely, then took the lid off for the alcohol to evaporate. I threw confetti into the party in the form of dried basil, black pepper, oregano, and bay. In went two giant cans of chicken stock. That got to a nice simmer for quite a while, so I added two cut up baked chicken breasts (I don't like meat with parts). I was looking low on liquid so I added two more little cans of broth I had in the cupboard and improvised with some water and bouillon. It worked out nicely. I let the carrots and celery get even more tender while the chicken soaked up some goodness from the pot. I finished it off with a whole bag of egg noodles and a handful of chopped fresh parsley for color.

It ended up being so rich and delicious. I think Jeff was impressed, or shocked, or both.

Now we have tons of soup, but it will be really good as leftovers and I will freeze some. We shared some with our downstairs neighbor and we'll probably continue to do so.

Yum!