Soup Pt. 2

The cold wind is blowing, I've been coughing for two days, blowing my nose and sucking on Halls. It's time for some soup. Ahhh, chicken noodle soup.

I'll be honest and admit that I've only made this once and it was heaven. It lasted two days for both lunch and dinner and I got some ideas for this wonderful soup from a few other soups I enjoy. 

Cabbage in soup is pretty good. I like the soft texture and mass it gives to the soup and I got this idea from Delicias Mexican cafe. When you order a big meal, you get soup for starters and that soup is very simple and good and it has cabbage in it.

I love aush (a delicious Afghan soup). When I make it , I use garlic, bay leaf and lentils. I love lentils and they're good for you too. (Oh, I also like split peas because they usually has a nice little crunch.)

I like my version of chicken noodle soup because it's more than the plain ole' chicken, noodles, carrots and celery soup. It has all kinds of stuff in it and I think that's what I like most about certain soups; that they're more than just a watery bowl of broth, they have substance, some weight to it, they have healthy things and chunky things.

I'll give you the recipe:

Chicken Noodle Soup by Andi

About a tablespoon or less of olive oil

1 chicken breast

3 carrots

1 teaspoon garlic (I use garlic already chopped)

1/2 onion

3 celery stocks

1 bay leaf

salt, pepper

About 1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/4 lentils

1/4 split peas

1/2 cabbage head 

Sprinkle of parsley flakes

2 cups of swirly egg noodles

chicken stock, enough for 4 cups

Enough water to make it all a soup (you can also add water in the middle of this too)

Cook chicken breast pieces in olive oil with carrots, celery, onion, garlic and bay leaf adding salt, pepper and paprika. When chicken is cooked add in the water and chicken stock. Add in lentils, split peas and the sprinkle of parsley (if you need a measurement, about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of dry parsley) and boil for about 20 minutes, that's how long it takes for the lentils and peas to cook. Add in cabbage and swirly noodles and boil for about 15 more minutes, until noodles are done. Taste and add more salt if you need it.

 

And more soup...

So I wrote a blog a while back about how I didn't like soup. Well, I like soup now and have since ordered it and thought about ordering it at a few restaurants. At least I'm starting to look at their soup menu now.

I'm also making more soup at home. I also tried to make fish head soup when I was feeling adventurous, but that was an epic fail. The recipe called for a bottle of amber beer and that was a mistake and a half. I really don't cook with alcohol and I didn't like the taste of it in this soup (I also made a Brunswick chicken soup with white wine that I didn't really care for). It made the whole pot of fish head soup disgusting -- the fish heads were good, though, we ate the meat off the bones but we didn't finish one bowl of it. And it made the house stink for three days.

Tilapia heads for fish soup.

Oh, and I did get to try some menudo. It's like the official soup of Las Cruces. I'm not too big of a fan. It had like a wheaty, grainy, dull taste to it that I wasn't fond of. This was very light, though, and I can see why people around here like it so much. It was delicious, but that faint intestine taste in the background was a little off putting. Don't get me wrong, if someone offered me a small bowl of menudo, I'd eat it.