Chicken Soup for a long rainy day!

Introduction:

Hey All,

This one's a bit different from usual!  It is more a dish that contains potatoes instead of a potato-centric dish itself.  But it was the first time I had ever made chicken stop and almost chicken noodle soup from scratch. That means I did everything on my own, sans actually made the noodles.

This was pretty fun, but I highly suggest you save it for a rainy day or when you have a lot of time on your hands! I made it on a particularly boring afternoon and when I had some leftover chicken bits lying around! (I had scored a free chicken from the grocery store.)

Food Items:

• Leftover Chicken Breast with all the bones and such
• Potato
• All sorts of veggies
• Celery
• Carrots
• Onions
• Anything you like in a soup
• Your choices of herbs and spices. I honestly don't remember what I put in there, but some sort of the following:
• Thyme
• Parsley
• Garlic
• Salt
• Pepper
• Etc etc
• Water, 4 quarts or something of the sort
• Noodles! I used egg noodles, but you can prob use whatever.

Utensils Needed:

• Knife and cutting board
• Giant Pot to fit everything
• Some sort of sieve and strainer
• Something to mix and stir the soup with

This thing is a sieve. Below
is a strainer. Yes I used both.

Directions:

• Fill up your pot of water. 
• Throw everything except for the noodles in a pot! I didn't put measurements for the herbs because ya'll are going to put what you like in there anyways. 
• Be careful not to splash and try not to overflow!
• Bring it all to a boil over some sort of high-ish heat.
• Once boiled, reduce the heat to a medium low and simmer, somewhat covered for as long as you want. Okay there is probably a max amount of time. I think I did it for like 2-3 hours just letting it boil away.
• IMPORTANT! Throughout the process, some stuff will build up. It'll look like foam. You'll want to take a little utensil, spoon, etc. to remove that stuff.  (The technical term is skimming.)

See that foamy stuff? Get rid of it!

• Whenever you decide to stop simmering that stuff, you are going to want to strain the broth through the sieve.  I did this a few times to make sure all the gross stuff didn't end up in the broth (the bones, some heartier herbs/stems, etc.)

The broth after it's been strained

• Ta-Da! You have your broth.  You can save it for later, or utilize it for some chicken noodle soup.
• To make the soup, all you have left is the egg noodles. Add them and cook them until their done. I think it was somewhere between 8-10 minutes, but cook it to the done-ness that you like. 

In the pot

Perks:

I love potatoes in my soup, which is why I featured it on the blog.  I think it really makes a soup heartier and go a bit further.  Additionally, I love the chicken broth and soup.  It really made the chicken extra delicious and the soup extra good.  I've never done anything like this before, but it was super delicious and goes a long way.

Variations:

It's really chicken broth or chicken stock at the end of the day, so you can really do whatever you want with that.  Change up the herbs, spices veggies, etc.  I feel like this is a recurring theme for my blog. 

Final Thoughts:

If you have an afternoon to waste and want to know how to make chicken broth, this is the way to go.  It's a lovely way to spend an afternoon and it really packs a good punch. Would be especially good on a rainy day or if you need soup for a week.