Sick Friends Call For Homemade Chicken Soup!

So, two families that our friends of ours have been through it, literally.  Both mothers have been through MAJOR chemotherapy (one for breast cancer, one for hepatitis.)  They both have very large families (roughly 10 kids each give or take a couple.)  The mothers have have some serious health problems besides what they've gone thought the chemo for.  The fathers in these families, one is a priest and has health issues of his own and the other, on top of being a priest also works full time to support the family.  These are very dear, sweet, precious, loving, kind, caring people.  Both families have been tremendous helps to us when we were going through some major stuff.

I still am unble to work outside of the house because of my back, but I can do a lot around the house as long as I can do it on my own time.  (I had back surgery October '09 that did not fix all the problems but it did fix the emergency that I had to have it for. Overall I'm still not back to where I was before I needed the surgery.)   I knew my friends weren't up to cooking yet so the situation was 'catch as catch can' with sandwiches and some frozen meals.  I did some shopping Sunday night, 3 'jumbo' packs of split chicken breasts, 3lbs carrots, 3lb bag of yellow onions, 1 stalk of celery, 8lb bag of really nice 'bakers' russet potatoes, 3 bags of Mueller's whole wheat extra wide dumplings, 1 bunch parsley and a small jar of 'better than bouillon' chicken base (GOOD stuff that, beats the crap out of bouillon cubes!) 

Thank you Budweiser of Soddy Daisy for choosing me to be a winner of a $100 Bi-Lo gift card so I could take care of my friends! 


So, Sunday night I broke down the chicken.  This means I took off the skin and excess fat and threw it away.  I then de-boned the breasts (something I should post a tutorial on, it's not hard once you get the tricks of it and it can save you some money to do it yourself.)  Threw the boneless breast meat and the tenders into a pan to put back in the fridge.  I threw the bones (with small amounts of meat attached) into the crock pot.  I added 2 stalks of celery cut very large, 2 carrots also cut very large and 1 onion quartered and NOT peeled (ends cut off though.)  I covered it with water and put it on 10 hour low cook. 

Next day I broke out my two stock pots and strained the stock through a small wire sieve and separated the stock into the two pots.  I cut up 4 onions into small dice and sauteed them in a bit of vegetable oil until just sweated and very lightly browned.  Half went into each pot.  I sliced the head of celery thinly and also sweated it well (including the leaves).  Half went into each.  I sliced the rest of the 2lbs of carrots into rounds (roughly 1/4") and they went directly into the pans.  I cut each potato in half and the half's again.  I then sliced the potato quarters into roughly 1/2" slices.  Half into each pot.  I de-glazed my veggie sweating pan with a bit of dry vermouth and put that into the pots.  I added water to the pots to make it the way I wanted it and added the chicken base to taste.  I also added black pepper and a tiny bit of salt.  I chopped part of the chicken breasts into bite sized pieces and put them in to the pots.  I brought the posts up to boiling and set my timer for 10 minutes.  After 10 minutes (potatoes and carrots tend to take about 20 minutes to cook, noodles take 10-12, I had to wait to add the noodles so they wouldn't be mush.)  I added my noodles.  It cooked about 15 minutes maybe and it was ready.  GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD stuff!   My husband and I along with Kathy and Nicholas delivered them Monday night.  Hopefully it helps them.