Pantry Cooking Series Week 2, Chicken Soup

Welcome back to my pantry cooking series!  As I mentioned in week one, cooking from the pantry helps us minimize grocery store runs, and take-out meals, as well as being handy if we just don’t want to leave home.  One thing I find worth mentioning though, is that if you have fresh ingredients on hand, by all means use them.  Fresh is surely the most flavorful, and nutritious.  I’m not recommending you permanently switch to canned, dehydrated or frozen ingredients, merely trying to demonstrate their usefulness.  Whenever I have a fresh ingredient on hand I use it over storage food.  So if you happen to have a chicken on hand start simmering it now.

Today we’re making a quick, and basic chicken soup.  I added homemade noodles to this one, but it would be just as good with a handful of rice tossed in, or homemade biscuit dough dropped in to make dumplings.  You know what your family would like best.

Ingredients:

• 2 QT water
• 3 Tbsp concentrated chicken stock (the brand I use recommends 3Tbsp per 1 QT of water, but I like it at half strength)
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp parsley flakes
• 1/4 C dehydrated celery
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 C dehydrated carrot (this time I used one fresh chopped carrot since I had it on hand, guess what we’ll be dehydrating soon)
• 1 10 oz can of chicken  (This is about the most expensive way to buy chicken.  I bought it to see how it compared to fresh, and it’s decent, but for my money, next time I’ll get chicken on sale and pressure can it myself.)

Using dehydrated and canned ingredients makes this a very quick meal, only slightly slower than just opening a can of soup.  All you do is combine the ingredients and bring to a boil over medium heat. While it boils for a few minutes you can whip up a batch of egg noodles.  No, really, you can!

Whole Wheat Egg Noodle Ingredients:

• 1 large egg
• 1/2 C whole wheat flour
• water as needed
• flour for dusting

Just place the flour on the counter and make a well in the middle.  Crack an egg into the well, and whisk.

Gradually pull in flour from the edges of the well until you have it all mixed in. You can add a little water here if needed. Wet your hands and work the dough for a few minutes until it is fairly smooth.

Now dust your counter and roll the dough to half the thickness you want your cooked noodles to be.  This is where I usually get lazy, so we have thick noodles.  Once you have the desired thickness just cut them to the size and shape you’d like and toss them into the boiling soup.  Boil for a minute or two then simmer for about 10 more minutes.

This whole process from start to sitting down takes maybe 30-40 minutes depending on how many times you stop to get someone a drink or help with a bathroom run.  Quick, easy, and great for a winter night.  Enjoy!

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