Amazing Chicken Noodle Soup

The family is yucky with allergies so I decided to make up a batch of chicken noodle soup. However, my broth usually feels "empty" when I don't roast the chicken first, so in my experimenting I found a perfectly acceptable flavor helper. Cooking sherry. How exciting!

For your enjoyment:

Amazing Chicken Noodle Soup

Skin a whole chicken and remove as much visible fat as you can be bothered with. I've been using organic chickens as of late. Put this into a cold soup pot and cover with water. Lid this and put it on the stove to boil. Skim the scummy yuck off the top and lower the heat to medium low. Leave this for a few hours to get fall apart goodness going on.

Remove, with difficulty, the chicken from the pot. Strain the broth so there aren't any of those teeny renegade bones in it and return it to the pot. I cheat and use two pots for this. Put all the chicken mass onto a plate and allow it to cool.

While the chicken is cooling, continue to heat the broth over a low heat. Season this with salt, fresh cracked pepper, and crumbled sage from last year's garden. Okay okay, you can probably use the store stuff. But mine's better :D Use lots. :P When the chicken is cool enough to handle, sit at the stove and put chunks of chicken straight from the bone into the broth. Avoid cartilage, fat, bone, and any non-muscle tissue. Ew. Anyways.

After you've used most of your chicken (I say most because my children hover whenever I piece out chicken. "Mommy? Chicken? Please?"), pour in about a cup of sherry and a cup or two of penne pasta. Bring to a light simmer and then lower the heat to lowish. Don't bother to cover it -- it's alright for this to condense.

I use penne because it's the fattest and holds up well to long cooking times without getting all... gooey. Also, penne was what was in the pantry :D

You could probably do the cooking the chicken part in the crock pot and then make the soup in the evening. The house sure smells good today.

Next to the chicken soup on the stove is my first batch of homemade chocolate syrup. I'll let you know how that turns out.