Chicken Noodle Soup for the Soul

I have felt like crap for a week.  Like most people around here, I seem to be developing allergies in my old age.  My nose is running like a faucet, my lungs are full of gunk that I cannot blow out my nose quick enough, I had the croup for 2 days last week and have a cough that keeps me up.  I have gotten very little sleep which has made me short-tempered and very crabby.  I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired!


I've had no energy nor desire to cook while I've been sick.  You know I have got to be pretty bad off
to not want to cook!  Cooking is my happy place, my stress reliever.  As I lay awake Friday night, I realized I needed some homemade chicken noodle soup.  In addition to tasting good, making you feel all warm and full and reminding you of your childhood sick days when mom fussed over you, chicken noodle soup really does have "magical" properties that help get you better physically.  I usually make soups from scratch, starting with homemade stock, but had none in the freezer.  *sigh*

I compromised.  The hubs bought me a rotisserie chicken from Costco (the best store bought chicken out there!) and I had 1 box of Kitchen Basics Unsalted Chicken Stock on hand.  I love Kitchen Basics!  I didn't get around to making the soup until yesterday afternoon.  Diced up some Vidalia onion, celery, carrot and a huge clove of garlic and sautéed them in butter.  While they cooked, I skinned and diced the meat from half of the Costco chicken.  Once the veggies had softened, I poured the entire box of stock in and brought it up to a boil.  Ground some pepper into the pot and sprinkled in a smudge of sea salt, then added the chicken and the noodles.  And here is where I made one of my classic mistakes.

You'd never know that 20 years ago I obtained a Culinary Arts degree by the number of mistakes I make in the kitchen!  I always put too much noodle in the soup.  I need to write my recipe down and consult it when I make this soup, so I would see that I need to measure out a tiny bit of pasta.  But, nope, I poured from the box and a ton slipped out.  It absorbed all the liquid!  Here is a pic of the some of the "soup" I put in container for the fridge.  No liquid to be seen.  I had no more stock in the house to add.  I put the "soup" in the fridge and walked away.  I was now even crabbier.

After the hubs and B went up for the night, I was watching Harry's Law and got hungry.  I mos def was not going to make something else, so I pulled out the "soup", stared it for a bit, gave a huffy breath and got a spoon.  Thankfully, when I tasted my "soup", it was gosh darn flavorful!  Not too strong, just packed with flavor. That had to do with using the Costco chicken.  So, I scooped some of the pasta mixture into a Vent 'n Serve Medium (the only containers we put in the microwave; they are awesome!) added a cup of water and heated it up for 1.5 minutes.  "Score, a direct hit. *snort, snort, snort*" (Any Sixteen Candles fans out there?)  As you can see from the top picture, the pasta was so saturated with the stock, that it bled out into the water, adding color.  The stock and the chicken also flavored the water and it was sooooo gooood.


And something wonderful happened.  I had made the soup to make my body feel better.  However, putting in the effort to make the soup when I was miserable, ruining the soup, resurrecting the disaster and finally sitting down with a bowl in dimmed lighting and peace and quiet, it made my soul feel better.  I really needed that.  I ended up getting 5-6 hours of sleep last night.  Not all in a row, mind you, but still more sleep than any other night in the past week.  Ahhhhhh.