Chicken Soup

Beth must have psychic when she left the comment that it’s casserole and soup season!  Maybe she just saw it coming, because I mentioned roasting a chicken and making broth earlier this week.  Tonight came the inevitable soup.  I was particularly happy with how it turned out.

I think it started from the excellent fresh broth.  I was a bit skimpy on the water when I made the broth, and I simmered it down a lot.  That gave it a more powerful flavor.  Then today, I got to use all kinds of fresh veggies.  Carrots, celery, onion, of course, but also peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, and garlic.  The noodles were red pepper from Ohio City Pasta.  A little splash of hot sauce boosted the flavor, along with salt and pepper, parsley, and (one of my secret ingredients) dill.  I don’t much care for dill, honestly, but just a pinch does something interesting in a soup, I think.  Now I’m wishing I had thought to throw in some zucchini – we’re probably all putting it in everything we can this week, right?

In the picture, you’ll notice the one down side of my small batch of broth – very chunky soup.  When does it become a stew?  I once heard Lynn Rosetto Kasper say that if you could eat it with a fork then it was a stew.  This nearly qualified.  In my opinion, though, it isn’t a stew unless you’ve thickened it with flour to make a gravy.  So I’m sticking with calling it chicken soup.  Or maybe I’ll just call it yummy.

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