Pots & Plots

Guess I’ve got chicken on the brain. I’ve also got the infamous Crud (that sort of ubiquitous allergy/sinus/cold thing everyone here has this time of year), so I decided to make up a batch of my famous homemade chicken noodle soup for myself. Normally this is reserved for taking to sick friends and family but after having a can of Campbell’s the other day and being massively disappointed, I decided I was worth making my soup for.

Ingredients:

• whole chicken or 3-4 chicken breasts and/or thighs, bone-in (to make stock–homemade is best, but store bought is acceptable–approximately 2 quarts, in which case you can just use boneless breasts and thighs to make it in a hurry)
• olive oil
• 2 medium onions, diced
• 3 ribs of celery, diced
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1 cup of diced carrots (I usually just buy the crinkle cut ones in the freezer section)
• parsley (fresh or dried)
• thyme (1/8th tsp)
• kosher salt
• fresh ground pepper
• paprika
• cayenne pepper (the secret ingredient…the little bit of heat helps to decongest)
• 2 cups dry noodles of your choice (I prefer whole wheat rotini or No Yolks dumplins)

Instructions:

1. Boil chicken to make stock. Remove chicken to cool. Once cool, debone and dice or shred with a pair of forks.
2. Heat 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil over medium high heat.
3. Add diced vegetables and garlic and cook over medium heat until onions and celery are translucent and carrots are starting to soften.
4. At this point you can continue on the stovetop or transfer to a crock pot.
5. To the vegetable mixture, add stock (approx. 2 quarts). Add the chicken.
6. Add herbs and spices and cover. If cooking on stovetop, simmer on low for 1 hour. If cooking in a crockpot, cook on low for 4 hours.
7. Add noodles and cook until al dente. Do not add until just before you’re ready to serve or they get mushy and fall apart in the soup.

I’ve always gotten rave reviews when I take this soup to sick friends and family, and I’ve turned quite a few of them into chicken soup snobs–once they had my soup they couldn’t go back to the canned stuff (though I’m sure a lot of that is that homemade soup in general is just a lot better than the canned stuff rather than any superior skill on my part). Bon appetite!

Uninspired for lunch or dinner? Looking for something easy? This is a good, fast recipe that came about because my mother was trying to lighten up and duplicate the chicken salad at La Bagette in Memphis (which is her all time favorite). She mixed it up and asked what I thought and I (being the foodie of the two of us) started listing things I thought we should add. So I mixed up my own batch of the following when I got home last night. It turned out pretty well considering I just kinda threw it together as a 10 o’clock snack/late dinner last night.

Ingredients:

• 1 12.5 oz. can of chicken breast (obviously leftover home cooked chicken is absolutely acceptable and probably better, but we’re talking about convenience food here)
• 2 scallions
• 1 rib of celery
• paprika
• salt
• fresh ground pepper
• FF Miracle Whip (or whatever mayo type product you keep around the house)
• slivered almonds

Directions:

1. Open the chicken, drain well and dump into a medium sized bowl (Tupperware works well if you wont’ be eating all of it at once).
2. Finely dice the scallions and celery and add to the chicken.
3. Add Miracle Whip to taste (I used about 1/4 cup because I’m not a big mayo person).
4. Add a dash of paprika, a pinch of salt, and fresh ground black pepper to taste.
5. Serve with crackers or on the bread of your choice. Also would be good on salad.
6. Sprinkle slivered almonds over the top.

Other variations:

• You could dry finely dicing some water chestnuts, grapes, apples, or any other high water content veggie (or fruit) you like to bump up the veggie and fiber content and help lower the calories further. The aim is go with high water content, crunchy stuff. You could, of course replace the scallions with some other onion or with shallots. I like the pop of green the scallions add. Shallots would be a nice mild flavor and a pretty pop f purple.
• The slivered almonds could be replaced with pecans or walnuts.
• For a little bit of heat, you could add just a LITTLE red pepper flakes or cayenne pepper. Too much would overwhelm the other flavors.

If you omit the bread or make it whole grain and leave out the fruit, this is a suitable Wave One food for Sonoma Diet or Phase 1 of South Beach Diet.