Homemade Chicken Soup heals what ails you..but only if you eat it.

Chicken Soup and buttered Irish Brown Bread

This is a week of sick little boys.  Coughing and fevers and snot inspired me to make a batch of homemade chicken soup.  "This will make them better!"  I thought. 

 So on sunday afternoon I simmered stock for 3 hours.  Then yesterday I completed the soup with some veg and chicken and noodles.  I also baked a hearty Irish brown bread to accompany said healing broth.  Dinner time came along and I proudly presented my soup and bread to the sick little ones, confident in the food's ability to provide comfort and wellness.  Owen looked at it and said: "I want eggs", Ian looked at it and said (rather loudly) "I don't like soup! I don't and I don't and I don't! I want jammy toast!"  I see.
So, John and I enjoyed the delicious soup and hearty bread while the kids ate eggs and toast.  Pick your battles I guess  Mom-0, boys-1.

Recipes:

Chicken soup

In a large pot, add:                                             

1 chicken carcasss

2 onions chopped in 4 with skins on

2 rough chopped celery stalks

2 rough chopped carrots

a handful of fresh thyme
coarse black pepper
a few good pinches of coarse salt

Bring to a boil, stir, put lid on pot but leave a venting space, and reduce heat to a gentle simmer.  You'll have to fiddle around to find that sweet simmer spot on your own stove top.  Simmer for about 3 hours, check on it and stir every 20 minutes or so.  Although I have left the house for a couple hours with stock on a gentle simmer.
Once done, put a sieve over a smaller pot and dump in the works.  You should be left with a lovely golden broth in the pot and I just dump out the stuff left in sieve.

In a seperate pot I boil some finely chopped carrots, when they are just soft, I add 2 finely chopped stalks of celery for about 2 minutes, just to soften celry a bit too.  Strain the veg and dump in soup pot.  I then add chopped up chicken (you can use chicken from the carcass you used to make stock but if you haven't got any you can use some baked chicken breasts or stripped off a grocery store cooked chicken, one breast and thigh is usually plenty for a nice meaty soup) and bring to a boil. 
Throw in 2 or 3 handfuls of a small pasta and cook until pasta is tender (about 5 minutes).  Remove from heat and serve!
**The reason I boil veg sepaerate is because I don't want all that lovely broth to evaporate on boiling veg, I find this works best for my tastes.  If broth is a little bland you can add a bit more salt to taste or a stock cube if needed at the end.
In terms of the chicken carcass, I tend to freeze mine after a roast chicken dinner for the very purpose of making soup.  If you don't feel like roasting your own chicken just use a cooked grocery store chicken but they can have a lot of extra salt so you might not need as much salt in your broth. 

Irish Brown Bread

Pre heat oven to 400 C.
In a large bowl:
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
3 tbsp. wheat germ
3 tbsp. wheat bran
2 tbsp. brown sugar
2 tbsp. oats
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

Cut in 1/4 cup chilled butter, use your fingers to smush it into the flour.  When butter is blended in, pour in   2 cups of Buttermilk.  I stir it around with the stick end of a wooden spoon.  If still a little dry, add more buttermilk 1 tbsp at a time, you don't want the dough too sticky and wet.  Flour your hands and knead dough a couple times, pick it up and form a ball, put on a baking sheet and flatten out to about 1 inch thick.

Bake at 400 C for 30-40 minutes.  It should be a dark golden brown and you can insert a toothpick in centre to check for doneness.

Serve warm with butter, yum!

This bread is also delicious for breakfast or with an afternoon cup of tea, served buttered and with jam.  John and I originally had this bread on our honeymoon, in Ireland  of course, and we loved it so much I hunted down a perfect recipe. 

Happy cooking!