Today we travel not so much to a place, but a time. Have you ever eaten something or craved something so much that it transports you back to your childhood? Where you can just close your eyes and feel a flood of memories wash over you? That’s what Chicken Noodle Soup is for me. It’s not necessarily always a happy memory or a sad one, but when I feel a sore throat coming on or a bit sniffly, I instantly reach out for a hot bowl of Chicken Noodle Soup.
I grew up in a pretty traditional Jewish family. So suffice to say, I’d always known Chicken Noodle Soup to be a cure-all for anything that ails you. Perhaps you’ve heard the saying Jewish Penicillin? Seriously, a good home-made Chicken soup will kick your thereaflu/multivitamin’s ass! Airborne? Please.
So I’m actually “knock on wood,” healthy as can be, but when I heard one of my friends was feeling a bit under the weather today, I took it upon myself to finally take the reins and learn to make this soup. I called up my Step-Mother and asked her how she makes it, having watched her make the soup about a dozen and a half times over the past few years, I’d still never made it myself. She gave me the gist of the recipe, but told me that there really is no precise way to do it. So here’s what I did.
2lbs Carrots, chopped
1lb Parsnips, chopped
1 whole bulb of Garlic, peel each clove
1 head of Celery, chopped
2 Onions, quartered
~2lbs Chicken breasts, chopped
Liberal dash/pour of Chicken bouillon powder, or about 3 cubes.
2-3 Bay leaves
2-3 TBS of dried Parsley
2-3 TBS of dried Tarragon
1 bag of wide Egg Noodles
Salt and Pepper for taste
~6cups of water.
That’s pretty much it. Today will also be the first time I’m using a pressure cooker.
So glad that it did not come to this…
Just combine all the ingredients into the cooker, fill the water up to the max line, click the lid and place, and then sit back and let the pressure cooker do the rest! If you choose to make this recipe with a pressure cooker be sure to read the instructions on how to handle it!
When the soup is all done it is pretty much ready to go! Just add your cooked noodles. However, we recently have started to make our soups a bit thicker! To do that, remove all the carrots and chicken from the soup into a bowl. Then use either an immersion blender stick ,or batch the soup in a blender. After everything is pureed add the chicken, carrots, and noodles back into the soup! Mmmmm good stuff! Goodbye stuffy nose!
Veggies Galore
Under pressure, dum dum dum de dum dum
Yep, that's soup!
Thick and hearty!
travels thru food 