
You just don't want to leave the house. It's pouring rain and it's just downright scary to hear the thunder roar just outside your door.
So you turn to the fridge to see what you can make to calm the nerves, to warm the soul, and to get you through...
I had one chicken breast in the freezer, lots of frozen veggies, and some leftover ingredients from my inspired stew from earlier this week.
Chicken Noodle Soup sounded good. But I'd never made that before, and MS wasn't going to be back in LA for another day. I couldn't just send him out for the right ingredients or take-out.
A google search of recipes called for chicken broth; all I had was beef bouillon - so I boiled six cups of water with six dark little cubes, and threw in a bay leaf, a dash of rosemary and the chicken chopped up into big chunks for almost 20 minutes. After the chicken was fully cooked, I placed them aside to cool.
The half onion left over was chopped and sauteed with some olive oil, smashed garlic clove, a dash of salt, a little more pepper, a sprinkle of crushed red pepper, and a shake of rosemary. Then I tossed in about a cup and a half of frozen carrots, peas, corn and green beans. Everything went into the pot of stock.
Then in the same pan, I cooked the quartered mushrooms in 2 Tbsp of unsalted butter with chopped thyme leaves (about two sprigs worth). Into the pot the little morsels went.
Heated a little bit of olive oil to toss the chicken that I made into smaller chunks with a chopped up Roma tomato left in the crisper, a dash of ground ginger, a shake of seasoned pepper and regular ground pepper too. Browned chicken and tomatoes, then squeezed in the juice of one small lemon picked from a neighbor's hanging tree, and dumped it all into the growing pot.
My leftover rice (about a cup or so) and a hand full of dried pasta went into the simmering pot for another 7-9 minutes with half a cup of chopped fresh parsley and just a bit of finely grated lemon rind.
Topped with chopped parsley, and I had my very first bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup!
*Note: If you have leftovers, like I do, be sure to separate the broth from the rest of the goodies... or you'll have a big gloop of mush the next morning.