Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

We've been eating lots of soup at our house to stay warm!  One recipe I made last week called for bay leaf and after having no luck locating it at Walmart or Schnucks, Kevin ended up at Fresh Market.  He found them and bought me two packs... or about 20 leaves.  (Sidenote: bay leaf is with the spices, not the fresh produce, and I'm sure every store has it; you just have to know where to look!). And well, most of my recipes call for one or two leaves... So I'm trying to use them up!

This chicken noodle was the best I've ever made.  It was full of flavor, and I didn't even notice the onion and celery once it was all cooked.  Don't be afraid to try new things!  Between bites, Kevin kept giving me lots of positive feedback saying: "This is amazing!", "What's in this to make it have so much flavor?", "Don't even try another chicken noodle soup!  This is the best!", "I hope you wrote down what you put in it!"... And he went back for seconds.  The kids liked it too!  I added little soup crackers to their bowls.

Ingredients:

3 fresh chicken breast, trimmed

5 medium carrots, peeled and chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

4 stalks of celery, chopped

4 cloves of garlic

3 Tbsp olive oil 

10 cups chicken broth (10 C water + 10 chicken bullion cubes)

1 cup water

3/4 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp sage

1/4 tsp celery seed

2 bay leaves

Salt and pepper to taste (10 cranks from a pepper mill, a sprinkle of salt - or more or less to taste.)

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2 C uncooked egg noodles

1/4 fresh parsley, chopped

1 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

*Crackers for serving 

In a large soup pan, add carrots, onion, celery, garlic, and chicken.  I chopped my onion and celery pretty well so I didn't have big chunks in the soup.  Drizzle olive oil on top of ingredients.  

Next add the chicken broth, water, thyme, sage, celery seed, bay leaves salt and pepper.  Turn the heat up to medium high and cover the soup pot.  Let cook for approx 45 mins stirring occasionally.  After the chicken is cooked, take out and cut into bite sized pieces.  Once cut, add back to the soup pot along with the fresh parsley, and lemon juice.  Remove bay leaves before serving. (You don't want to ever eat those in case you didn't know that.) 

Serve with soup crackers and enjoy!