Soupy Thoughts and a Chicken Vegetable Soup Recipe

Chicken Stock with Spinach and Carrots

This picture may just look like a typical soup, but it is actually a lot more than that to me. The last time I actually made a soup was over three months ago when I was severely burnt out with posting recipes and lost inspiration of what to do next with the site. Then, on a dreary and rainy NYC afternoon my daughters and I went to the grocery store, which we tend to end up doing almost everyday, where my older said, “Can we get soup? I love soup.” Now, might sound like a typical thing a child would say except that my child has been saying for years (well, about 3 years) that she hates soups/doesn’t like soup/thinks soup is yucky. This is also the very same child who was the impetus for this very website who was now looking at cans of soup and trying to find one with noodles. Since creating Soupy (almost three ago), I haven’t purchased any soup from a supermarket. Not that there is anything wrong with that but through this experience, I learned how to create my own recipes, and what I thought was good (processed soups) actually started to taste processed, over salted and had no real flavor. I couldn’t eat soup like that anymore because there was no need to.

I looked around for the least-processed soup, an organic soup with tofu, and I practically raced home to serve my non-Soupy girl some soup. She proceed to eat it and I got to thinking about the website and how this girl who hated soup was now eating it with ease. And just like that I wanted to make soup again – as a way to give her the very best ingredients and create new food ideas for the entire family.

So, while I was posting five times a week, then three – now, I think one is sufficient with a new recipe every week, which sometimes might been reviving old favorites. This week, to ease myself back into soupy, I made a simple chicken stock and added in some mini star pasta with spinach for a comforting and revitalizing bowl – which I think is appropriate for my gradual return back to soup making.

Chicken Stock

(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken cut into 1/4′s (I used a small organic chicken)
1 large pot almost completely filled (75%) with water
4 carrots
2 stalks of celery, cut up
2 small parsnips or 1 large parsnip, cut up
1 small yellow onion, diced into small cubes
1 small bunch of dill tied tied together with white thread
1 small bunch of parsley tied together with white thread
Approximately 2 tablespoons of salt, tasting throughout the simmering process, adding more if needed

Directions:

Fill up a pot with water and bring to a boil. Add the chicken and cover. While that is cooking cut up, tie the thread around the dill and parsley, and the clean the vegetables. When the water/chicken starts to boil, clean any bubbles or dirt that acclimates to the surface. Add all of the vegetables and the salt to the pot. Set to a very low flame and allow the water to simmer slowly for two hours. Periodically check the pot and taste the concoction, adding salt if needed. After three hours let the vegetables sit in the pot until they cool. Discard all vegetables except carrots. Depending on when you are making the matzo meal you may need to keep your broth in the fridge or remove the vegetables and place the pot immediately back on the heat as the matzo balls are added.