Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? To Become Chicken Soup!

Festive Chicken Noodle Soup (for the Marathon Runner’s Soul)

Recently our mother ran her first half marathon (woot! way to go mom!) and had some of her running friends for a carb & protein loading party the night before. A part of their dinner was Beer Butt Chicken, so we took the carcasses (shouldn’t there be a better word than that for a cooking blog? That word sounds so morbid) and made some soup. So just remember friends, when the world gives you chicken, make some chicken soup or should we settle for the quote by Lady Gaga “Once you kill a chicken, you gotta make some chicken soup.”

Now the way I like to make soup is quite simple. I don’t follow a recipe, just add ingredients, sample and add more if needed. Now this isn’t the best way to get a consitent tasting soup, but it does add some variety. Also, most people don’t know that making soup from scratch is quite time consuming, so be sure to save an evening in order to make it. Here’s what I did this time:

Creating the broth:

• One big soup pot filled with water
• Sea salt & pepper
• Two chicken carcasses (ew, there’s that word again….)
• One whole onion quartered
• One whole apple quartered
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp paprika
• 2 tsp celery salt
• 2/3 cup of ketchup
• 1/4 cup dehydrated onion flakes
• 1 tbsp parsley flakes
• All ingredients are tossed into the water, and simmered over a medium heat for about an hour.

Now for the Soup Making:

• Take the carcasses out of the soup, pick off all remaining meat and toss back into the soup
• Onions and apples can also be taken out at this point
• 2 cups of frozen mixed vegetables
• 1 can of unico assorted beans (drained, rinsed & added)
• 2 large potatoes (cut up into LARGE chunks & added)
• 2 cups of pasta (I used bow-tie & macaroni)

The soup tasted delicious and made quite a bit, so be sure to invite some friends over to share it with. Congrats again to all the half-marathon runners – I have no clue how you guys ran for 21.5km – and in the snow. You are amazing!!

Soup for all!

Carlene