We sat and talked a bit before he laid down for a nap and one of the subjects was dinner.
“Chicken soup would be good,” he said.
Chicken soup, I thought. No problem. I can pop a frozen chicken in the Crockpot right now and we will have soup for dinner.
But then my mind wandered to the current crop of veggies and herbs in the yard.
I found myself stacking up ingredients that have in the past really helped the hub and the kids when they were sick: onion, sage, celery, leek, and of course carrots. I suppose potatoes are important too, but I always think of them as a way to make sure everyone’s tummies get full, and not so much for their vitamin content.
Why are there different kinds of chicken soup?
I cannot think of any other meal that can vary so drastically depending on its intended function and still keep the same name. Chicken soup can be a medicine when you are sick when it is steeped in herbs and carrots and onion. Chicken soup can be a lunch for the kids with nothing more than chicken, broth, and noodles. Chicken soup can be a gourmet dinner with semolina dumplings. All of these, and many more, are called Chicken Soup.
Why don’t we call them by different names? They are different soups, after all.
I guess it is the magic of the chicken. Chickens are perhaps the most stupendous creature in existence. The most important gift we have. She gives us eggs each day. she gives us exercise as we refill her waterer more times each day than we can count, and she gives us a soup that can serve a hundred purposes.
And that must be why, no matter the purpose or ingredients, we just call it, “Chicken Soup.”
My Get-Better Chicken Soup:
- 1 whole chicken (including the neck, heart, liver, and gizzard that usually comes frozen in the cavity of the bird)
- 1 can chicken broth
- 2 stalks chopped celery
- 4 large carrots, chopped
- 1 large white onion diced (my family does not like onion in general so I usually dice it as finely as I can in soup so that they cannot identify it as a separate ingredient)
- 1 cup finely diced squash, or zucchini, or cabbage, or beet greens (I just try to sneak as many vitamins in as possible. Yes this will disappear in the final soup pretty well so no one gets a spoonful of zucchini that can be boycotted. Also chopping the carrots and potatoes into large pieces helps to hide the smaller-chopped ingredients. And you thought cooking and magic had little in common!)
- 4-6 potatoes (I use smaller white potatoes, since that is what we grow. But really anything works.)
- 1 tbps salt
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tbps sage (this comes from my garden so I chop it finely, but I think store bought is just fine)
Procedure: Throw everything but the potatoes into the Crockpot on high in the morning. Around lunchtime throw in the potatoes. About an hour before dinnertime bake some rolls. At this point you can pull out the chicken, pull the meat off, and place the meat back in the soup. At that point you can add more water to the soup to match the consistency of soup you like and also the number of mouths you need to feed. Let this simmer another half hour or so, and serve.
Pretty easy, right?