Where’s the Chicken? Noodle Soup

I love the fall and winter, cooler temperatures mean I can heat up my house by cooking up a storm in the kitchen. A mug of soup and fresh baked bread are two of my favorite cold weather foods. No meat, no problem. I added boiled potatoes to this soup to make it a little more filling since there wasn’t any meat in the soup. ENJOY!

WHERE’S THE CHICKEN? NOODLE SOUP

2 T Olive Oil
3 Stalks Celery chopped (greens included)
3 Carrots, pealed and sliced
1 small onion, chopped
3-4 large potatoes, pealed and cubed
8 c chicken or veggie stock
1 1/2 -2 c Egg Noodles
Pinch of Thyme
Salt to taste

Place potatoes in large pot, cover with cold water, and salt water accordingly. Boil potatoes until fork tender. Meanwhile, heat oil in Dutch oven, sautee celery, carrots and onion until tender. Add stock and bring to boil. Add egg noodles and boil until tender. Drain potatoes and add to Dutch oven . Salt to taste, add in thyme. Simmer.

Some great looking soup recipes from blogs I read:

Beef Barley Soup from Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy

Turkey Soup from Mennonite Girls Can Cook

Vegetarian Lentil Soup from Kalyn’s Kitchen

My soup recipes:

Tortellini Soup

Old-Time Beef Stew

Broccoli Cheese Soup –Most popular

Chicken Noodle and Chunky Potato

Tortellini Soup

Hungry? Need a quick meal? This is the recipe for you! I got all my ingredients at Aldi so this meal cost next to nothing; not only were our tummies happy, but so was our pocketbook. My husband said this was quite possibly the best soup he has had in his 26 years of life. I guess I will be making this one again! We left the meat out, but you could easily add cooked, shredded chicken or cooked Italian sausage.

Tortellini Soup
8 c chicken (veggie) broth/stock
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 package dried tortellini
2 handfuls of torn baby spinach
sprinkle of grated Parmesan cheese

Bring stock/broth to boil, add tomatoes and tortellini, cook until tortellini are tender. About 12 minutes. Turn heat off, add spinach and stir. Once soup is dished into bowls add a sprinkle of Parmesan. ENJOY!

Old-Time Beef Stew

October is now here, and in the mid-west that means the thermometer greatly fluctuates from the morning to afternoon. Our weather can be quite silly. As I write this now (in the morning) the thermometer is saying it is a crisp 44 degrees F, but by noon today we are to reach temperatures in the mid 70s. With such changes in temperature my cravings change dramatically too. In the morning I am ready to bake bread and make soup all day, but soon after I have that craving the sun warms everything up and then I don’t feel like turning on the oven and heating up the house. That is where my craving for stew started, in the morning when it was still 67 degrees in my house; I was going to begin my stew after lunch. By lunch time it was a warm 77 degrees in our house and I did not feel like making stew, so I put it off to the next day.I did finally make that beef stew, and it was delicious. It is too bad the leftovers got shoved to the back of the fridge and was forgotten.

I used Paula Dean‘s recipe for Old-Time Beef Stew. I did a few things differently than she did. I chopped up my carrots, celery, onion and 2 pounds potatoes. I drizzled them with olive oil and a little salt and pepper. I roasted them at 425 degrees F for about one hour, stirring every 15 minutes.