TWO SOUPS---CHICKEN NOODLE AND CREAM OF BROCCOLI

Today I will be posting two soups, chicken noodle and cream of broccoli.  These are so much better when you make them from scratch and I hope you will give them a try.   The chicken noodle soup is very similar to my chicken and dumpling recipe that I posted earlier.  You will notice that a number of my recipes start with boiling chicken, so I hope you are getting a lot of experience with this.

The cream of broccoli recipe is great but if you want to use asparagus instead, that would be delicious also.  Have fun making soup sometime this week.  Just add a salad, fruit and some delicious bread.  Enjoy!

CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken or 4-6  chicken breasts,  boiled and chopped

4 quarts Chicken Stock (homemade or from cartons)

2 T. butter

2 T. olive oil

2 c. diced sweet onion

2 c. medium-diced celery

2 c. medium-diced carrots

4 cups wide egg noodles

½  c. chopped fresh parsley

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions:

*Boil chicken ahead of time.  Cool and chop into bite size chunks.

*Saute onion, celery and carrots in butter and olive oil.  Don’t let these get brown, only soft and translucent.

*Bring the chicken stock to a simmer in a large pot and add the onion, celery and carrots.

*Add noodles.  Simmer uncovered for 10 minutes until the noodles are cooked.

* Add the cooked chicken chunks and parsley and heat through. 

Season to taste. 

*The amounts and ingredients are only recommendations.  Add more or less according to your tastes. 

*Add rice or different noodles if you prefer—instead of the egg noodles.

CREAM OF BROCCOLI SOUP

Ingredients:

3 cups chicken broth (homemade or from cartons)

1 cup chopped onion

4 cups fresh broccoli florets

4 T. Butter

4 T. flour

Kosher salt

Black pepper

2 cups milk (whole milk, or at least 2% is best)

Instructions:

*In a saucepan, combine chicken broth, chopped onion and broccoli.

Bring mixture to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

*Pour the mixture into a heat safe blender (1/2 at a time), cover and puree.

*In a saucepan, melt the butter.  Stir in the flour, salt and pepper with a small whisk. 

*Over medium heat, add the milk all at once and whisk constantly until blended.

*Continue whisking as you cook and stir the milk, flour mixture until it becomes thick and bubbly.  Congratulations you have just made a roux, which is the  thickening agent of any cream soup and is made from butter and flour.  Reduce heat if necessary so that the roux does not burn.

*Stir in the blended broccoli mixture.

*Cook and stir until soup is heated through.

*Add more salt and pepper if you wish.

**Variation---substitute asparagus for the broccoli.