Chicken Soup to Warm You on these Cold Days of Winter
Have you noticed that the days are slowly becoming a bit longer? We head out around 6:15 on Wednesday evenings, and this past Wednesday I realized it wasn’t quite so dark. That means spring is on its way! However before spring comes, we will have quite a few days of winter left.
As a child, one of my favorite meals was chicken soup. I loved it. I loved the taste. I loved how the house smelled and I loved the bread and butter we always had with it. My mom would make a big pot, so I was very happy with what we had for dinner for several days.
Chicken soup is so simple to make. The way I make it spaces out the work load to create an easy and low maintenance supper for several nights in a row (or maybe a meal or two to keep in the freezer for a busy night ahead).
I will start my soup either in the morning or early afternoon, placing the entire chicken in a large pot of water. Once the chicken is cooked, the meat is removed from the bones (often by one or more of the kids) and placed in the fridge. The bones all go back into the pot and cook on a very very low simmer until around 2:00 or 3:00 the next afternoon I then add parsley, bay leaves, onions, celery and carrots to cook until soft. Before serving, I will add salt and pepper and then add the chicken back into the pot until heated. Sometimes I will chop all the veggies on the day I cook the chicken; making things a lot easier the next day. (This is when I often get out a jar or two of frozen celery and onions that I talked about in my last post.)
Not only is adding the bones back to the pot and simmering them for a while so simple, but it also adds lots of minerals to your soup. Cooking the bones for a day will turn the liquid into a beautiful, nutritious stock, instead of just a watery broth. You DO NOT need to add any chicken bouillon cubes or powders! It tastes delicious without the bouillon! After all, years ago, there was no bouillon, just honest to goodness stock cooked for hours.
Enjoy the chicken soup with a flavorful loaf of authentic sourdough bread! Click here for the recipe for Gwen’s Chicken Soup.