I've been feeling sick the past couple days, so I thought I'd make some homemade chicken soup, a la my grandma's recipe. The few things I used:
One big-ass pot, a chicken (mine says "Beef: It's what you want."), carrots, celery, an onion (this one was a Vidalia onion, but you could use a white or red one if you please), and about 20-25 bouillon cubes. Parsley was optional, and I opted not to use it. Also, you'll want to add salt as well.
Put the chicken in the pot and add enough water to cover it, plus about another inch or so. Let it simmer at medium to medium-high heat for about an hour.
While the chicken is on the stove, use this time to prepare the veggies and unwrap those damn bouillon cubes.. Slice up your carrots and celery. You can do it by hand, but my lazy ass used a food processor. Add as many or as little of them as you like. I like a lot of carrots, so I used the whole bag. I don't like celery as much, so I only used about half of it. I used the whole onion as well (it's chopped, but for some reason I have no picture).
I know I said I wasn't going to use parsley-- I didn't. If you want, just use the top leaves from the celery. It looks like parsley, and no one else but you will know the difference, right?
Put it all in and give it a good stir. Add a bit of salt and taste it. I like mine a little on the saltier side, so I added quite a bit. Turn the heat down to low or medium-low and let that cook for about 3 more hours. You can use this time to configure and compile your custom Debian kernel and watch some TiVo. Oh, and probably do some clean up work. Peeling all those carrots leaves quite a mess.
Give it a good stir every once in a while. After two more hours, we're looking pretty good. Mmmm.
You'll know when it's done when the carrots are really soft and the chicken meat literally falls off the bone. Find two large utensils and fish all that meat out of there.
Now you'll have to go through the whole chicken and pick off all the skin and remove the bones and cartilage. You can cut the meat into more bite-size chunks, but mine was so tender I just used my hands.
Throw it all back in and you're done! As you can see, I yielded quite a bit: 3 Gladware containers and a medium-sized bowl. The Gladwares are going to be stuck in the freezer, where they'll keep for several months just fine, and the bowl is going in the fridge.
See this nasty layer of unhealthy chicken fat on top? After some refrigeration, it will solidify, and you can just scoop it off.
You can add your own noodles if you want chicken noodle soup as well (my grandma has a recipe for homemade noodles as well, but that's a whole other thread entirely). I would have made some, but they're damn time-consuming to make.
A bowl of the finished product. Boy, was that tasty. And good for sick goons, too!
One big-ass pot, a chicken (mine says "Beef: It's what you want."), carrots, celery, an onion (this one was a Vidalia onion, but you could use a white or red one if you please), and about 20-25 bouillon cubes. Parsley was optional, and I opted not to use it. Also, you'll want to add salt as well.
Put the chicken in the pot and add enough water to cover it, plus about another inch or so. Let it simmer at medium to medium-high heat for about an hour.
While the chicken is on the stove, use this time to prepare the veggies and unwrap those damn bouillon cubes.. Slice up your carrots and celery. You can do it by hand, but my lazy ass used a food processor. Add as many or as little of them as you like. I like a lot of carrots, so I used the whole bag. I don't like celery as much, so I only used about half of it. I used the whole onion as well (it's chopped, but for some reason I have no picture).
I know I said I wasn't going to use parsley-- I didn't. If you want, just use the top leaves from the celery. It looks like parsley, and no one else but you will know the difference, right?
Put it all in and give it a good stir. Add a bit of salt and taste it. I like mine a little on the saltier side, so I added quite a bit. Turn the heat down to low or medium-low and let that cook for about 3 more hours. You can use this time to configure and compile your custom Debian kernel and watch some TiVo. Oh, and probably do some clean up work. Peeling all those carrots leaves quite a mess.
Give it a good stir every once in a while. After two more hours, we're looking pretty good. Mmmm.
You'll know when it's done when the carrots are really soft and the chicken meat literally falls off the bone. Find two large utensils and fish all that meat out of there.
Now you'll have to go through the whole chicken and pick off all the skin and remove the bones and cartilage. You can cut the meat into more bite-size chunks, but mine was so tender I just used my hands.
Throw it all back in and you're done! As you can see, I yielded quite a bit: 3 Gladware containers and a medium-sized bowl. The Gladwares are going to be stuck in the freezer, where they'll keep for several months just fine, and the bowl is going in the fridge.
See this nasty layer of unhealthy chicken fat on top? After some refrigeration, it will solidify, and you can just scoop it off.
You can add your own noodles if you want chicken noodle soup as well (my grandma has a recipe for homemade noodles as well, but that's a whole other thread entirely). I would have made some, but they're damn time-consuming to make.
A bowl of the finished product. Boy, was that tasty. And good for sick goons, too!