Chicken and Sherry Noodle Soup

Chicken Noodle Soup is one of my favorite go-to weekday meals. At least in the winter months. In the Summer, I tend to do more week-night salads. But anyway. It really only takes about a half hour to make this soup and is so much better than any store-bought soup out there. It also works well for make-ahead meals. It freezes well, too. When making it ahead or freezing it, just make everything but the noodles. Don't make the noodles until the day of, otherwise the noodles sop up all the broth!


2-3 chicken breasts, depending on how meaty you like your soup
2 large carrots
2 small celery sticks
a small onion
2-3 bay leaves
6 cups chicken stock
thyme
Sherry (just one big glug)
Pasta (I like to use one package of fresh fetticine noodles from refrigerator section at grocery store, or about 2/3 thirds of a box of dried bow tie noodles)


I know a lot of people make fun of Rachael Ray, but personally I've learned some good stuff from her. If you know your recipe well, you can do make it so much faster. When going to the refrigerator, get EVERYTHING out that you'll need for your recipe. It really does save time. And when you've worked late, and you get home and everyone is starving you'll be oh so glad that you can make this quick. If you have the ingredients, why not double this recipe and freeze half of the stock for another meal later?

So, as I say so often, first things first. Get your chicken breasts into a medium sized pot (but not your soup pot!) and add 4 cups of chicken stock. (That's one cardboard container of stock at the grocery store) To your pot add a couple bay leaves, and a teaspoon or two of time. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and cook until chicken is cooked through.
Now it's time to start chopping! (My favorite part!) I always cut the carrots first, because I'm a much slower carrot-cutter than I am onion-cutter. And carrots are hard, and take a long time to cook anyway.

Once the carrots are chopped, I get my pan warming up on med-high heat. I put some olive oil in the pan, and start chopping the onions.

Once the onions are chopped, pop the carrots and onions into the pan and get them cooking. While they get started, chop the celery. After you've got everything going in the pan, season up with salt and pepper.

Once you get those delicious brown bits going on in that pan, its time to hit it up with some sherry. Allow the sherry to burn off, and then add remaining chicken stock. Let it cook for like that until the chicken is down in the other pan.

When the chicken is done, take the chicken out and add stock to soup pot. With the chicken, you'll either want to shred it or cut it into bite-sized pieces. I prefer to shred it, but this will take a bit longer. In case you've never shredded meat before, you just need to forks to get the right method. While you're shredding the chicken, bring the soup pot up to a boil and add noodles.

Once the noodles are done, add the chicken and serve up. Serve with crusty bread or a salad.