Lanie's Kitchen- Chicken Noodle

Why make Homemade Chicken noodle when you can buy it in a can?
As a kid, I lived off of Campbell's Chicken Noodle soup. When I got a little older, I realized how little sustenance was in that little can and eventually I also caught on to the fact that canned soup is Horrible for you! I've always been prone to migraine headaches, and according to some random article I read somewhere and my own trial and error experiment results, canned soup does tend to cause them, especially whenever you eat it as often as I did then. You can avoid all the processed junk, and even fill up your freezer with quart freezer baggies of healthy chicken noodle for easy, quick meals if you just put a little time aside to cook this lovely meal.

My Disclaimer for this and all future recipes I share is this: I frequently look up recipes to gain ideas and knowledge about cooking, but seldom follow them. I've found, what works best for me is to look at a few different recipes of something and then come up with my own spin. I mostly taught myself to cook, so I rarely do things the way "most people" would, so some of the "Instructables" may sound strange and since I remember being new to cooking and not knowing what anything meant, I also tend to over explain things. Another quark to my cooking is, I rarely measure things before cooking with them... Please bear with me... It's just how I roll dawg.

We started this adventure with some great tunes and air guitar (or butter knife guitar...), provided by my little rocker!

It's always a good idea to set a good tone before you start cooking. I think that's what gives the food that "Made With Love" taste... js

Ingredients:

1- 3lb bag Boneless Skinless Chicken   

1- Sweet yellow onion 

1- Bunch of celery 

1- Bag of Carrots 
1- 1lb bag of Wide Egg Noodles

Knorr Hispanic Granulated Bouillon 

TexJoy Steak Seasoning (optional)

Lawry's Garlic Salt (optional)

Instructables:

First off, Boil the Chicken in enough water to cover it. Sprinkle in enough Knorr bouillon to have a thin layer across the water. I also use the TexJoy at this point, and it doesn't take more than a good sprinkling. You'll know the chicken is done when you can cut into a large breast and the inside is white and the juice runs clear. (Officially you should check with a cooking thermometer, but I've never owned one, so I'm no help there)

While your chicken is cooking, scrub and rinse your veggies to prepare for the pot.

Whenever the chicken is finished cooking, drain it into a colander and leave to cool in the sink while you cook the veggies. DO NOT save the broth from this, unless that is the flavor you prefer. Although chicken noodle is my favorite meal in the world, I HATE the smell of boiled chicken and so I discard this broth and just make more with the Knorr bouillon while I'm cooking the veggies.

I like to Chop the Onion and Celery first so I can get those cooking, and they're soft by the time I add the carrots. Add the chopped onion and celery to the pot and add enough hot water to cover them, then sprinkle Knorr chicken bouillon so that there is a layer over the water and add a light sprinkle of the TexJoy Steak Seasoning and Lawry's Garlic Salt. I've included pictures of the chopping process because I'm one of those "texture" people and if my food isn't chopped certain sizes and cooked a certain way, the texture can make the whole meal seem "off." I know not everyone is as OCD as I can be, but here are some detailed pics anyway!

cut in half, sliced thin, and quartered

whole carrots with the skin, quartered lengthwise and diced

After the Onions are starting to turn clear around the edges, it's time to Add Carrots to the pot. At this point, the bouillon broth should be thickening some and it should all smell Amazing already! Always taste your food as you go, so you can make alterations as needed, but keep in mind with this meal that the juice Should taste too salty at this point in the process. This is because we still have to cook the carrots and noodles, which will soak up a lot of that flavor and the recipe is actually intended to be more like a condensed soup, so you are able to add water as necessary, to your individual bowl. I prefer a lot of flavor in mine, but some people water theirs down.

I use this recipe as a freezer meal, so the more condensed the soup is, the more portions I'm able to put in a quart sized freezer baggie, to defrost for easy family sized lunches later.

When the onion's edges start turning clear, it's time to add the carrots

So, you've added your carrots and patiently waited for those to soften... At this point, you should be able to easily slice through a bigger chunk of carrot with a knife. Now you can Add the Egg Noodles to the pot, and you may need to add some hot water to the pot, for the noodles to be covered enough as they soak up water. These you will boil until they are not quite done, because the pot is going to stay hot for a while and unless you like noodle mush it's best to kill the heat at this point.

Starting to look lovely and smell heavenly! 

While the noodles boil, Chop your (now cooled) Chicken. Trim the chicken well before chopping, so nobody has to gag on chunks of fat. For optimal texture and chewability, I also recommend you first cut the chicken across the grain (this means you look at the tiny lines that run across the chicken breast and cut so that you're making a plus sign, for those new to cooking), then cut into bites.


I can't stand to waste, so all the trimmings from the chicken went to our first child, Zeus.
I'm a Big fan of feeding the help... Don't let that intense look fool you, his tail was beating a hole in the floor and he was drooling all over himself!

You've done it! If you made it this far, I hope you have something that looks a little like this!

Serve with some Sweet Tea, Whole Grain Saltines and a chunk of Mild Cheddar Cheese and prepare to taste a little bit of Heaven!

Love at First Bite!

Please share any suggestions of ways to improve the food, or if you try this out, please comment below on how it turned out!