Chicken Soup

Home made chicken soup is divine and can be easy if you take some shortcuts. Of course it's very gratifying and supremely tasty to make your own chicken broth from scratch, but you can also buy some good pre-made stocks at the grocery store.

To make the broth from scratch, start with a roasted chicken (buy one at Costco, or do it yourself). Pull all the meat off and put it in the fridge until the stock is ready. Put the carcass (I know that sounds gross, but let's call a spade a spade people) in a pot with a chopped onion, a chopped carrot, and a chopped stalk of celery. Cover the bones and veggies with water and let it sit at a light boil for 1-2 hours. Strain it, saving the broth and pitching the rest of it, and put the broth into the fridge. Once it cools, scrape the fat off the top.

To make the soup, put 1 quart of broth in a pot with one stalk of celery and one carrot, both chopped. Boil the veggies until they're as soft as you like them, then add some chopped, cooked chicken (probably somewhere between 1/2 and 1 cup) and about 1/2 a pound of fresh fettucine cut into little strips (the stuff you can buy in the refrigerator section near the cheese is tasty).
Cook the pasta according to the direction on the package, and add the juice of 1/2 of a fresh lemon (I love adding lemon to chicken soup. Even if you use Campbell's, you should try the lemon). If you made your own broth, you'll have to add some salt to taste.