Chicken Noodle Soup, Part 1

Guys, I don't know why I lied and said I was going to triple post yesterday. I didn't even have three posts lined up. But I DID make Chicken Noodle Soup yesterday. I'm going to tell you right now: it was labor intensive and next time I'm making it using homemade stock. I'll explain that last part at the end. So, let's get started. I cooked this in three sections.

Section 1: Chicken
(Do you know how to cook chicken? In my house it's generally always a variation) 4 skinless chicken breasts heavily seasoned with: thyme, basil, parsley and pepper. Brown on both sides in a skillet. Add combination of water and chicken broth (about a cup together) and some bay leaves. Simmer for 30-40 minutes, turning half-way through. Save liquid. Cut up chicken.

Section 2: Broth Thickener
Boiled a potato, cut into chunks, (small golden kind...Yukon Gold) and 4 sections of garlic in about 2 cups of chicken broth until everything was soft enough to mash. Then I mashed everything. THEN I put everything in a mesh strainer, strained the liquid and alternately mashed the solids through strainer and scraped the mashings from the outside of the strainer to add to the previously strained broth. Then I had to heat and swirl, a la the Clean Mac n' Cheese recipe, until the SUPER strained potatoes and garlic mixed into the broth. Clearly this took 7 years.

Section 3: Soup
I took the liquid from sections 1 and 2 and added 2 cups of chicken broth and 2 cups of water in a large stew  pot. Then I added potato, onion and carrot chunks, chicken and 3 cups of noodles. I cooked this, adding combinations of broth and water depending on how low the liquid became, until the noodles were finished cooking.

Verdict: Super tasty soup. Way too many noodles. I don't even want to think about how much sodium ended up in there because of all the store bought "reduced-sodium" broth I used.

Changes I'll make in December when I cook this again: 2 cups of noodles instead of 3, more strained potatoes to make the actual stock thicker (maybe 3-4), cooking a stock ahead of time from scratch, adding seasonings to the stock (instead of relying on the seasoning from cooking the chicken), less carrots and potatoes and I might use a string pasta instead of rigatoni. Hopefully, in December I'll have a camera too so I'll have a picture to show for all my hard work. Dreaming big! Salud!