A very basic chicken (or chickenless) soup

Today at 1:15pm I got a phone call from my sweet husband telling me that he was leaving school early because he was sick.  Between yesterday afternoon and today, he had caught some sort of cold in which he could not stop sneezing.  His co-teacher actually told him to go home because the sneezing was that bad (or annoying-we aren't sure which).

My mother has always taught me that if you have a cold, you need to have plenty of liquids to fight it off.  Therefore, after I got home and settled in, I asked Matt if he would be interested in having chicken noodle soup for dinner.  After discussing the benefits of a broth-filled dinner, he agreed to this dinner plan.

Below is my quick recipe for a very basic chicken noodle soup.  We had almost all the ingredients at our house so the only thing I had to run out and buy was a box of noodles.  However, in case you don't have noodles, rice would have been a perfectly acceptable replacement.  Unfortunately for us, we were out of rice too.  I don't eat chicken so I added the chicken only to Matt's portion of the soup.  This soup was really good for how basic the ingredients are.  Even Matt, who was eating the soup between sneezes and sniffles, agreed that it was mighty fine for such a quick, simple dinner.  Our house smells so warm and seasoned right now from cooking this dinner.  That only adds to the enjoyment of making it!

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Basic Chicken Soup

2 bay leaves
2 chicken breasts or tenderloins
7-8 cups of fat free chicken broth
1 box noodles (we used tri-colored spiral noodles)
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 medium carrots, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Heat a large pot of salted water.  This pot will be for your spiral noodles.  Cook according to the directions on the noodle box.

Place 2 bay leaves and 2 frozen chicken breasts in a pot of salted water over medium heat.  Once chicken is cooked through, take chicken out of water and cut into small bite sized pieces.  Add to the boiling chicken broth and vegetables.

While chicken is cooking, chop the celery and carrots.  Place chopped vegetables in a large pot filled with the chicken broth, Kosher salt, garlic powder, and black pepper.  Bring to a boil and then cook for approximately 20 minutes or until vegetables are tender on a medium heat.

Once your chicken has been added to the broth and the noodles have been cooked according to the directions, take the big pan of chicken broth off the heat.  Add noodles to the broth according to how many noodles you want in the soup.  Some people like their chicken soup with lots of noodles while others like it more brothy.  If you have extra noodles leftover, save them for another meal making adventure later in the week!

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