Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

So Kris and I are getting ready to move back to Colorado in a few weeks and were trying to plan out meals for what we would like to eat from now until we leave. We sat down and decided on a few of our favorite recipes. All of the meals we decided on you can make up ahead of time and freeze for later. Then, when you are hungry and don't feel like cooking, you can just warm them up on the stove.

Basically, we spent the whole day Saturday shopping, cooking, and waiting for stuff to cool so we could put it away. We ended up making about 25 meals for us (or 50 servings) of food that we can eat from now until we leave. We were both pretty exhausted by the end of the day, but are thrilled that we won't have to really cook again before we leave unless we want to.

Why do I share this all with you? Because cooking can be healthy, cheap, tasty, and fast when you plan ahead and use fresh, nutrient rich ingredients. I have been saying that I will share two of my soup recipes for awhile and after our cooking extravaganza on Saturday, I am finally ready to release one!

This homemade grandma-style chicken noodle soup is amazing! You make everything from scratch, even the stock and the noodles. It's also really easy to make, and goes a long way. Like many soup recipes, it is very versatile and you can make it with different consistencies, flavors, and vegetables. With the cold weather starting to creep in, and with it colds, coughs, and stuffy noses, this recipe is definitely a good one to hang on to for those chilly winter nights when you just want to curl up under a blanket and get warm and cozy. I hope that you will love this recipe just as much as I do. Enjoy!

*Parts of this recipe are adapted from Tyler Florence's Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe.
Ingredients:
Makes 14, 1 & 1/2 Cup Servings

Stock:

• 1 Whole Chicken (free-range)
• 3 Stalks Celery (cut into large chunks)
• 2 Carrot Green Tops
• 2 Carrots (cut into large chunks)
• 2 Large White Onions (quartered, still attached to the root)
• 1 Medium Turnip (quartered)
• 1 Head of Garlic (cut in half)
• 1/4 Bunch Fresh Thyme
• 5-7 Sprigs Fresh Parsley
• 2 Bay Leaves
• 1 tsp Whole Black Peppercorns

Soup:

• Lug of Extra Virgin Olive Oil  
• 1 Medium Onion (chopped)
• 3 Garlic Cloves (minced)
• 2 Carrots (chopped to desired size)
• 3 Stalks of Celery (chopped to desired size)
• 4 Sprigs of Fresh Thyme (leaves only)
• 1 Bay Leaf
• *Shredded Chicken from Stock*
• *Stock made previously*
• *Egg Noodles* (recipe follows)

Egg Noodles:

• 2 Cups Flour
• 3 Egg Yolks
• 1 Egg
• 2 tsp Salt
• 1/4-1/2 Cup Water

Directions for the Stock: 

1. Place whole chicken (minus the giblets) in a large stock pot along with the rest of the vegetables on the stove on medium high heat.
2. Pour only enough water in to cover up the chicken and vegetables (about 2 & 1/2 - 3 quarts).
3. Add the thyme, parsley, bay leaves, and peppercorns and bring to a boil. 
4. Once it boils, turn the heat down to medium-low and gently simmer for 1 & 1/2 hours, partially covered, until the chicken is fully cooked.
5. Remove the chicken to the cutting board and once it cools remove the skin and bones and shred the meat. Set the shredded meat to the side to use later.
6. Strain the stock and remove the vegetables, then set them to the side in a separate bowl.
7. Let stock cool and skim the fat off the surface then set the stock to the side.
8. Remove the root from the onions and puree onions, carrots, carrot tops, turnip, and celery in a blender or food processor.
9. Add pureed vegetables back into the stock; whisk together and set aside for later. 

Directions for the Egg Noodles:

1. Place flour in a bowl, then, after making a well in the center, add in the egg yolks, egg and salt.
2. Thoroughly mix with hands.
3. Add the water in 1 Tbsp at a time, mixing after each addition. 
4. Stop adding water when you can roll the dough into a ball. 
5. On a floured surface, knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic (about 10 minutes)
6. Cover and let it rest for 10 minutes.
7. Divide into 4 equal parts.
8. Using one part at a time, roll dough into a paper-thin rectangle. Keep remaining dough covered.
9. Gently and loosely, roll rectangle into a spiral. Cut to desired thickness and unroll. 
10. Place strips to dry on a towel or wax paper. This will usually take about 2 hours. 
11. Break the strips into small strips when dry. 
12. Cook in boiling water with salt added for about 15-20 minutes until tender. Drain, then add to soup when soup is finished.

Directions for the Soup:

1. In a stock pot, add oil and wait for it to heat. When heated, add in the onion, garlic, celery, carrots, thyme, and bay leaf. 
2. Cook and stir until vegetables are tender (about 6 minutes).
3. Pour in the chicken stock and bring to a boil. 
4. Add in the shredded chicken and simmer for another few minutes to bring to the same temperature. 
5. (If you are going to serve all of the soup at once, stir in the already cooked egg noodles and cook for another minute or so)
6. Separate into equal servings. Salt and pepper to taste and sprinkle with fresh parsley. 
7. (If freezing remaining soup, separate into freezer safe Tupperware to cool before placing in freezer. To defrost, simply place soup in a pot on the stove and add a little bit of water until it is the right consistency. When warm, and noodles are cooked, add the noodles into the soup). 

 Nutrition Facts (with noodles, per serving):

• Calories: 350
• Total Fat: 20 grams
• Sodium: 796 mg
• Potassium: 189 mg
• Sugars: 3 grams
• Protein: 21.2 grams
• Vitamin A: 51.4%
• Vitamin C: 16%
• Calcium: 3%
• Copper: 4%
• Folate: 5.5%
• Iron: 13%
• Magnesium: 4%
• Manganese: 10%
• Phosphorus: 4.5%
• Selenium: 12%

 What it Costs:

• Total cost is somewhere between 13-15 dollars.
• When you divide this by how many servings you get (14), it's about 1 dollar per serving. Definitely a lot cheaper than a frozen dinner or fast food.

Tips and Tricks

•  When making the egg noodles, don't just throw away the egg whites from the yolks you have to use. Save the egg whites in a bowl in the fridge and use them to make my healthy and tasty bran muffins. Here is the recipe: Michelle's Healthy and Tasty Bran Muffins
• The reason I don't add the noodles into the soup when I cook it is because we freeze all but two servings of the soup (which we eat right away). The noodles will get soggy if they are cooked, frozen and reheated again. The easiest thing to do is to cook as many noodles as you need per serving separately, and then add them into the reheated soup. This will keep the noodles from getting soggy, and will also make sure that you get the right amount of noodles in your serving of soup.  
• While the stock is cooking you can make your noodles. Don't worry, if they're not dry by the time you need to boil them, you will still be able to cook them the same way. Just be sure to wait for the remaining noodles to dry before you put them away in a bag to store them.
• The stock and soup are very versatile. You can add whatever else in that you want to make it taste the way you like it. The essentials for any chicken stock however are chicken, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, spices, and herbs. So while you can add other things to the stock, I wouldn't recommend removing any of these ingredients from it or else it will loose its flavor. 
• You do not have to puree the left over vegetables from the stock if you do not wish to do so. Pureeing the vegetables adds A LOT more flavor to the stock though, so I would highly recommend it. You can also play around with how much of the vegetables you want to puree and which ones to give it a different consistency and flavor. 
• You can also use rice instead of noodles to make it healthier. About half of the time we eat this soup I will make up some brown rice to toss in.
• As always, it is much better to buy organic vegetables if you can get them.

Why it is Healthy:

• For one, you are cooking from scratch and it is pretty hard to beat that. Everything from the stock to the noodles, you will be creating yourself. This way you can know for sure what you have put in it, and how much of what you have put in it. 
• You get to develop the flavors of the chicken naturally and cook it in a healthy way. By boiling the chicken with vegetables and letting it sit in its own juices instead of cooking it with oil in a frying pan, it becomes less fatty.
• This recipe uses a ton of vegetables that are terrific for you. If you make the recipe just as I have written it you will be getting carrots, carrot greens, turnip, onions, celery, parsley and thyme. You are getting them directly in the soup, but also in the stock and the puree if you add it to the stock. This bowl of soup is packed full of nutrients. Especially in the winter, this soup can help keep you healthy!
• Carrots are great because they are high in carotenoids and as such have many different health benefits. High carotenoid intake has been associated with a decrease of up to 50 percent in bladder, cervix, prostate, colon, larynx, and esophageal cancer as well as up to a 20 percent decrease on postmenopausal breast cancer. Carrots are also good for your eyes because they have the carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin which can prevent cataracts and keep your eyes from degenerating. These carotenoids also break down to vitamin A in the body which is an antioxidant and immune system booster and can also help you see better in dim lighting. By adding the carrot greens to the puree you probably won't be able to taste them but you will get the potassium and protein they provide. 
• Celery is good because it helps lower high blood pressure. It also contains silicon which is good for bone health. Celery can also help stop the growth of cancer cells.
• Onions help to build strong bones and can reduce death from heart disease by 20%. It can also help relieve asthma.
• Turnips are an incredibly healthy vegetable. One cup of cooked turnips only has 35 calories but has 3 grams of fiber, 250 mg of potassium, 18 mg of vitamin C, and 51 mg of calcium. As such they are very good for bone health. 
• Garlic lowers cholesterol and prevents blood clots. Garlic also has anti-cancer properties and can even help fight the common cold. Also, it can help with blood pressure. It has recently been discovered that garlic can help with weight control. 
• Parsley can help fight cancer.
• Thyme contains antioxidants as well as aids with digestion. It can even relieve chest and respiratory problems like coughs or bronchitis.
• Most of the information regarding the vegetables and herbs was taken from The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth by Jonny Bowden.

Well, that's my recipe for today. I hope that you enjoy it. Please feel free to comment with any questions and I will be happy to answer them. Also, "like" the Tummy Temple on Facebook here:
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As always, thanks for reading and eating along with me!

Food, Inc.

I have many people close to me who have made a few jabs at me about my recent interest in nutrition. They think I have gone off of the deep end and find that I talk like a conspiracy theorist who has an issue with the government. To those of you who know me-I'm sure it does seem like things have definitely changed in my life. Well . . . they have! I've been losing weight at a slow, but steady rate, have had more energy, and haven't been sick as much as I would have normally for this time of year. I say none of this to make anyone feel bad, I am just trying to communicate that making changes in your eating habits does in fact make a HUGE difference. Just how huge? Well it can be the difference between life and death.

Living and Dead Food

In Eat This and Live, Dr. Don Colbert talks about the difference between living and dead food. Living food is the food that is as close to its normal form as possible. These are the foods that God has given us that grow naturally: fruits, vegetables, grain, etc. Living food is also classified as animals we eat that are fed the things they are supposed to be eating (i.e. cows by nature, are designed to eat grass, not corn). God gave us a plethora of delicious things on this earth to eat. Why are we so inclined to change them to make them less healthy? Change them how? By making dead foods-processing the living foods.

There is an enormous amount of dead food in our society today. According to Dr. Colbert, about 1/3 of the average American's diet is made up of junk food.The scary thing is that dead food might even be things you don't even realize are bad for you. For example, I grew up eating margarine in my family for two reasons: 1) It was cheaper 2) It had less fat and calories. However, margarine is nothing but a processed chemical substance where the final product is actually gray in color. Food processors dye it yellow so its appearance won't be so off-putting (a.k.a. freaking disgusting!).

Why do I bring this up? Because I thought I knew a lot about the shiesty ways of the food industry. It was for this reason that one of the first things Kris and I did when we decided to start eating healthier was to cut out fast food (fast food companies can sell food for so cheap because of their poor standards when it comes to quality in how their food is grown and raised). BUT, I honestly had no idea just how bad the quality of food in this country was until I stumbled upon a film on our Netflix last Thursday called Food, Inc.

Food, Inc.

Food, Inc. is a documentary  that came out in 2009 about the food industry in America. It talks about how fast food changed the production of food in America forever. While watching the film I saw several things I was aware of before (i.e. ground beef hamburger filler being washed in ammonia to kill e coli and other bacteria) but I was shocked, horrified and disgusted as I learned way more about food in America than I had ever heard of. Here is the trailer:

Food, Inc. is on instant streaming if you have Netflix, if not, I am sure you can find it to rent at any video store or from Amazon.com Instant video. If you don't have the money to rent it, let me know, I will let you come over and watch it at my apartment. That's how much I want you to watch it!

Here are just a few things I learn from Food, Inc.:

• I have been talking a lot on this blog about the importance of buying organic. Well, until I saw this film, I had no idea just how truly important it was. One of the things Food, Inc. talks about it how chickens are raised now. A normal chicken is supposed to grow in about three months. Now, thanks to hormone injections and a change in feed, chickens can be ready for slaughter in just a measly 47 days:

 

• Chickens are also kept in dark houses for the majority of their lives sitting in their own feces. I know that I can't be the only one who feels that there is something wrong here. 
• Chicken is not the only meat that is talked about in this documentary either-pork and beef have equally disgusting stories of how they make it to your dinner plate. Next time you go to the store to pick out meat, look at the packaging of most of the bigger name companies. The name and/or logo will usually have something to do with a farm. Whether it is a picture or says something like "farm fresh" the food industry leads us to believe that the food we are getting actually is coming from the idealistic picture of the American farmer out with his animals in the fresh air:

•  The reality is actually something far different:

• There are no seasons for food anymore. Food can be grown and ripened year round through the use of chemical gases. To me at least, it seems like we have forgotten what food is really supposed to be like. 
• When we go to the store we think we have such a wide variety of things to choose from. Did you know that most of the products you buy in the store are corn or soy based? 90% actually according to the film. We live the illusion of variety every single day. 

So why would I post about this film? Why would I choose to write a blog about eating healthier? Why would I not care about looking like a health nut in front of people I care about? Because I think that what we put into our bodies matters. I believe something we do as frequently as eating should be beneficial for us instead of harmful. I believe that we have the right to know where our food comes from and how it is processed.

Why do we not eat better?

So why do so many people eat unhealthy food? For majority of us, the answer is ignorance. Not ignorance by choice, but because this information is not shared readily with the public. The big companies that process our food do not want us to know how they are handling the food we put into our bodies daily. For others, maybe it is ignorance by choice. For a long time this was me. I thought I would be happier not knowing and no one cared to tell me. Change is hard. Change is scary. Change is uncomfortable at times. I just feel that as a Christian, and just as a fellow human being, keeping the information to myself is not an option. 

A scary fact talked about in Food, Inc. is that 1/3 of children born after 2000 will get early onset type 2 diabetes. That number is 1/2 for minorities. People are getting sick and dying because of the food that is just handed to us day in and day out. This tears my heart out. I can almost handle hurting myself, but I refuse to hand my children this fate.

For some, the problem is that healthy food is expensive. Plain and simple. I understand this all too well. Kris and I are a young, newly married couple living on one income while the other goes to school. Needless to say, money is tight. We see eating healthy food as an investment in our future. We are spending a little more money on food now, so that we don't have to spend money on medical bills in the future. 

Where do I start?

I'm sure all of this is overwhelming. It is a lot of information. A lot of real, scary, honest-to-God-punch-you-in-the-stomach information. Say you do want to start eating healthy, where would you even start? I would suggest watching Food, Inc. and then reading the remainder of this blog. Trust me, it's worth your time.

Changing the way you eat is not a quick process and it shouldn't be. Making drastic changes in your eating habits almost ensures that you will fail to maintain new habits in the long run. Gradual, small, changes are the best way to go. Kris and I have almost been on this journey for a year, and we are still working at it! 

If you are interested in having a healthier life but aren't sure where to start, here are a few jumping off points:

• If you eat a lot of fast food, start to gradually cut back on your intake and replace those meals by cooking a meal at home with fresh ingredients. 
• Try to have a fruit or vegetable at every meal you have. Buy one that is organic and in season. Then try expanding the variety of fruits and vegetables that you eat. Learn how to incorporate them better into your meals. Then try to make them count for a bigger portion of your meals. 
• Try buying a few things from a Farmer's Market. 
• Simply replace candy with dark chocolate (See previous post). 
• There are literally thousands of places you could start, but you have to start somewhere!

Like I said, small gradual changes are the way to go. Just as in exercising, don't do too much too fast, or you will want to give up. As you work your way towards a healthier lifestyle you will also get to enjoy the benefits of it along the way and that should motivate you to keep going. Having more energy, loosing weight, and a better immune system are just a few of the benefits you will start to notice. In the long run, you can rest assured knowing that you are making an investment in your future.

But don't take my word for it. Watch Food, Inc. Seriously. Do some research. By a book. Watch the Jamie Oliver videos on my site. If there is one thing I know, it is this: God wants us to take care of our bodies, so we should. Therefore what we put into our bodies matters a great deal. 

Well that's all I have for today. As always, thanks for reading and eating along with me!