Soup's On!

I have a number of other things that I've been planning on posting about (namely a four year old post about Ella - but blogger has been not letting me upload my pics which are just absolutely necessary!) but I love soup and I'm a fan of Boomama's so I decided to participate in her Soup-tacular soup exchange.

I'm posting two of my favorite soup recipes. Interestingly enough these were both given to me by the same person, my wonderful friend Shannon (who doesn't blog, but you can check out her husband Greg's blog if you feel like it). So big shotout to Shannon for bringing these soups into my life, and subsequently, yours!

The first is for a corn chowder that I most recently made at a fall party we hosted and everyone loved it and asked for the recipe. That was two months ago. Instead of sharing it with them, I'm sharing it with you all!

Corn Chowder
8 slices bacon, minced

1 small onion, minced

2 17oz cans of creamed corn (the cans I found were smaller than this so I used more than 2 - never can have too much creamed corn!)
3 cups cooked, cubed potatoes (I'm sure I use more of these also. I just boil them until slightly tender because I like to let the soup simmer for awhile to let the flavors blend. But I don't mind if the potatoes are falling apart -because it's a soup!)
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup evaporated milk
2 1/3 cup water
1/2 tsp garlic salt

Fry the onion and bacon in a pot (until bacon is cooked). Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer until hot.

See - easy cheesy. This soup can be made pretty quickly, but like I said I think it tastes best when it's been on the stove on low for awhile.

I think this soup goes wonderfully with roast beef sandwhiches - hot or cold.

The second soup is an old fashioned chicken noodle soup. It's just so good and I think everyone needs a good homemade chicken noodle soup. I don't like the chicken noodle soup at Panera's anymore and I think it's because this is just better (in my opinion of course). It was originally a chicken and dumplings recipe but I adapted it for soup. If you're a fan of dumblings let me know and I can post that recipe as well.

The thing that I think makes this soup so good is the chicken paste base and the homemade noodles.

Chicken Noodle Soup with Homemade Egg Noodles
3 split chicken breasts
1 large onion cut into wedges
3 carrots (I always use more) choppped
3 stalks celery (ditto above) chopped
Chicken paste (not bouillion cubes or powder!!! scoop this out with a spoon)

Fill large pot with water (sorry so subjective - I have no specific measurements). Add salt and pepper to your liking and bring to a boil. Add chicken breasts and simmer for 20 minutes. Add veggies and simmer for 45 minutes to an hour. Remove chicken and veggies. Shred chicken. Add 3T Chicken Paste (you might want to add a bit more - again, to taste) Bring to a boil and toss in the noodles.

OK now this is when you take the homemade noodles that you made while the veggies were cooking and add to the soup.

Egg Noodles
INGREDIENTS
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 pinch salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon butter

DIRECTIONS
In a large bowl, stir together the flour and salt. Add the beaten egg, milk, and butter. Knead dough until smooth, about 5 minutes. Let rest in a covered bowl for 10 minutes.
On a floured surface, roll out to 1/8 or 1/4 inch thickness. (I like them thicker) Cut into desired lengths and shapes. Allow to air dry before cooking. Hangers work well for this.

Allow the noodles to boil for a few minutes in the soup before adding the veggies back in. Remember that the noodles tend to suck up some of the broth so make sure you account for this when you're deciding how many noodles to put in our how much water to start with. The noodles need some time to cook and soak in the flavor of the soup and become nice and tender (unless you made them really thin, but why would you?!).

It's supposed to be cold up here in the Northeast - perfect weekend to try one of these recipes with a nice hot loaf of french bread.

Enjoy!