Mmmmmm Good

When I heard that today's weather would be the start of several cooler days, I decided it would be a good time to make chicken noodle soup. So, yesterday I cooked the chicken and when I get home from my appointment ....I will put the soup together.I love cooler days like this and soup is a favorite of ours.

Joe's Recipe for Chicken Soup:

* Note: If making a small amount of soup, just alter the amount of ingredients to fit. This receipe is for a large soup pot.Whole Chicken or 4 chicken breasts. Boil in large stewing kettle (something like you saw in cartoons of cannibals cooking people) Add generous amt. of salt.Slice 6-7 carrots end to end. No need to peel.Cut up 4 stalks of celery.Cut up 2 large onions.When chicken parts are done...take out of boiling water, but do not throw water away. Allow chicken parts to cool. Carefully cut or pull chicken bones away from meat. Slice the chicken parts longways. Lay slices flat and slice longways again...then cut into cubes. Throw everything together into the pot.Now, add to the pot, 3-4 heaping tablespoons of chicken base (you can buy this at the store rather inexpensively) And stir all together. Then add generous amt. of dehydrated parsley flakes. The best Chicken base of the several that I have tried is the Chicken Base bought at the GFS store.Finally, using white pepper, add salt and pepper to taste.Now for the noodles..... Boil noodles in a large separate kettle.Now I use wide no yolk egg noodles and rotini combined.In this large kettle, put in more water than you think you'll need and then add few drops of cooking oil (keeps noodles from sticking together). Bring water to a boil and add the noodles...stirring frequently until tender. After noodles are cooked, pour into a scolapasta and drain. Then rinse noodles thoroughly with real hot water (this removes all the starch). (If you prefer, just cook the noodles until Al Dente and then add them to the liquid soup.)Add all the noodles to soup mixture in kettle, bring to a boil again and simmer for half hour or more.NOTE: The amount of noodles that you will use will depend on how large of a kettle that you started with. Just remember more noodles is better than less noodles.... You may want to sprinkle a small amt. of cumin into the soup towards the end and stir in thoroughly. ENJOY!***Also, if you would like you can add potatoes to the soup, just peel 3-4 med. sized Yukon Gold potatoes. Cut into large cubes. Definitions... Scolapasta = A colander Joe's grandma was from Sicily and spoke very little English. He lived with her and could speak Italian.  

Speaking of lunches....I watched Dr. Oz and First Lady Michelle Obama yesterday. They were discussing the changes in the school lunch program starting this year. There was a panel of kids there to sample the lunches. All the lunches are kid friendly and the kids loved them. Just a simple addition of whole wheat in noodles, pizza crust, and sandwiches makes lunches healthier...without the kids even knowing it. These lunches looked so appetizing and I'm sure the people serving them are saying Yea for the first lady. I quote her here...“As parents, we try to prepare decent meals, limit how much junk food our kids eat and ensure that they have a reasonable balanced diet, and when we are putting in all that effort the last thing we want is for our hard work to be undone each day in the school cafeteria.” I hope that this plus finding out that kids need gym and outdoor activity in their days, will help with childhood obesity.

Balisha