Chicken Noodle.... my way.

I know it's spring, but April will bring lots of rainy days... days perfect for soup. Chicken Noodle is one of our favorites.


Roasted garlic...


Celery...


Onion...


Carrots...


I had half a red onion left over from the tabbouleh, so in it went...


Swiss chard...


One rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. Our local grocery store has one that they call 'Caribbean Lime'. I got that one.


Doesn't that look good?


At the end, I threw in some orzo.


Yum.

Chicken Noodle Soup
1 head of garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus some for drizzling garlic
4 to 5 celery stalks(leaves and all), chopped
4 to 5 carrots, chopped
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 bunch swiss chard, destemmed and chopped fairly small
1 can quartered artichokes, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1 teaspoon herbes de provence
1 tablespoon mesquite seasoning (you could use any chicken grill seasoning or McCormicks Montreal Steak Seasoning would work well too)
3 quarts chicken stock (3 boxes)
1 rotisserie chicken, shredded
1 cup orzo or other small pasta

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Slice one whole garlic head in half. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. Wrap halves loosely with aluminum foil and place packet in oven for 30 minutes. Remove garlic from aluminum foil and gently squeeze cloves out of skin and chop.

Add olive oil to a large soup pot at medium heat. Add garlic and veggies to the oil as they are chopped. Once all the veggies have been added to the pot and mixed well, season with salt, pepper and chicken seasoning. Stir veggies and seasonings well to incorporate.

Add chicken stock. While the stock and veggies are heating up, shred the chicken into the pot. Once chicken has been added, let soup simmer for 15 or 20 minutes. Then add orzo. Let soup simmer for another 8 minutes to cook pasta, and then remove from heat and serve.

Lemon Chicken Noodle Soup

What could be better on a cool, rainy, spring day than a bowl of chicken soup.....and a panini on the side of course...... kidding, kidding.... The panini maker has become our favorite kitchen appliance this week...



Although I normally make my good ole standby Rachael Ray recipe for chicken soup with stars, which is always a big hit, this past weekend I thought I would try Giada's version. Hers has the added twist of fresh squeezed lemon juice added to the chicken broth.

The original recipe is called Lemon Chicken Soup with Spaghetti, but I decided to use Lumachine noodles as well as a handful of stars instead of the spaghetti because I really love the Lumachine noodles in soups, and they seemed easier to deal with than spaghetti. If you're not familiar with them, they are very much like mutant macaroni noodles and about the same size. My ding dong calls them 'cyclops pasta' because they have one large hole on one end.... at least I think that's why he calls them that, but you can never be sure...... I also shredded the rotisserie chicken instead of chopping the chicken into bite sized pieces. It was delicious and the perfect meal for a relaxing day inside.

Recipe is adapted from Giada De Laurentiis and foodnetwork.com (Recipe can also be found in Giada's book Giada at Home)

10 cups low-sodium chicken broth (add more or less depending on how much broth you like)
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
1 dried bay leaf
1 cup Parmesan cheese
2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into 1/4-inch pieces
1 medium onion, diced fine
2 ribs celery, diced fine
1 cup (about 2 1/2 ounces) Lumachine pasta (you can use broken spaghetti noodles or any short cut pasta)
1 rotisserie chicken, meat shredded
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Kosher salt

In a large stockpot, bring the chicken broth, lemon juice, bay leaf to a boil over medium-high heat.

Add the carrots, onion and celery and simmer until tender, about 5 to 8 minutes.

Add the pasta and cook until the pasta is tender, for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the chicken and heat through, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove the bay leaf and discard. Stir in 1/2 of the cheese and the parsley. Season with salt, to taste. Ladle the soup into serving bowls and sprinkle with the remaining cheese.