“Since hunger is the most primitive and permanent of human wants, men always want to eat, but since their wish not to be a mere animal is also profound, they have always attended with special care to the manners which conceal the fact that at the table we are animals feeding.” - John Erskine

31 January 2013

italian chicken soup



You may have figured it out by now: my husband doesn’t much like soup.  There are exceptions.  I’ve had great success getting him to eat pasta e fagioli ~ as long as I leave out most all of the beans.  Which kind of defeats the purpose in my opinion.  But for the most part he feels that soup is an appetizer, not a meal.  Or in other words, soup doesn’t fill him up, and he’s hungry again an hour or two later.  But I like soup.  Oldest likes soup.  And on cold nasty days like we’ve had around here lately, soup is quick, warm and comforting.

So, because I’m such a kind and selfless wife, I decided to try a new soup recipe I found (where else) on Pinterest.  SO happy I did.  Wow is this soup good.  I made a few adjustments to suit myself my family ~ Middlest and Littlest won’t eat tomatoes, so I replaced half of them and used bigger tomatoes for the ones I left in so that they could pick them out easier; you KNOW I left out the onions; and since I’m not supposed to eat celery right now (and because I didn’t have any in the house) I opted to use celery flakes instead (in the hopes that they would be ok...).  But whether it was the modifications I made or that the original recipe was just that good, this soup is The Bomb.  And it’s not just me who thought so.  My husband came in from shoveling snow, loaded up his bowl, and then proceeded to tell me that this is now is favorite soup.  Didn’t even complain that he had to eat soup.  In fact, he went back for seconds.  And thirds.  ‘Nough said.

Italian Chicken Soup
serves 12
(enough to feed my animals and then have leftovers to freeze)
adapted from thirty hand made days

16 ounces pasta (I used rigatoni)
4 cups shredded chicken (I used frozen, shredded rotisserie chicken)
8½ cups chicken broth
4 stalks celery, diced, or 2 tablespoons celery flakes
2 (15 oz) cans diced tomatoes
2 (15 oz) cans tomato sauce
1 tomato sauce can of water
2 cups heavy cream
1 tablespoon Chef Tess Romantic Italian, or Italian seasoning
1 tablespoon onion powder, or to taste
season salt and pepper to taste

In a large soup pot combine chicken broth, water, chicken, tomatoes with their juice and tomato sauce.  Add in herbs, salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook pasta according to al dente directions.  Drain and rinse with cold water.

Remove soup from heat; add in pasta and cream.  Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.

2 comments:

  1. Ok, Marlena, it looks wonderful in the pix & I think I gained another 50lbs just reading "2C heavy cream". Yum!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Considering how much soup this makes, you're really not getting THAT much cream. Anyway, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

    ReplyDelete