Chicken Soup

The quintessential "put stuff in a pot and cook it" recipe. Also explained by Adam Ragusea.

Ingredients

• A chicken
• Some onions, rough-chopped or slivered
• Some carrots, chopped bite size
• Some celery, spoonable size
• Some seasonings: poultry seasoning, sage, thyme, etc.
• 2 tsp. turmeric for that essential yellow color
• Anything else you want in your soup, such as: beans, potatoes, root vegetables, greens, etc.

Instructions

Put the entire chicken in a pot (including any juice that came with it). Remove the giblets if they offend you. Cover with water. Simmer for about an hour or until it's cooked. It's cooked when you try to lift it out of the pot by the leg and the leg falls off.

Carefully extract the chicken (it's full of boiling stock at this point) and any bits that fell off. Put the chicken aside to cool for a bit.

Add the seasonings and any long-cooking ingredients (like dried beans) to the stock and simmer.

When the chicken is cool enough to handle, disassemble it for the meat. Chop the meat into spoonable pieces.

Add the other vegetables to the pot and simmer until they are almost done. Add the chicken and simmer for a few more minutes. That's it!

Variations

Chicken Noodle Soup

Add some pasta to the soup. Any kind you like. Stars, noodles, shells, tubes. The noodles will soak up a LOT of liquid, so be sure to make the soup extra soupy.

Chicken and Dumplings

Quick dumpling recipe:

• 2 Tbsp melted butter
• 1 cup AP flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. herbs (optional)
• 1/3 cup milk

Melt the butter, then mix in the dry ingredients to make a crumbly mix. Stir in the milk. It will be pretty stiff and gloppy.

Drop teaspoon-sized blobs into your soup. Cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes.