Chicken and Vegetable Soup!

I’m definitely slowly getting back in the groove of things! On Saturday, as you know, I wasn’t tip top and I figured that on Sunday, I’d go get some chicken and make some nice warm and comforting chicken soup.  Plus, its the best to eat soup in cold freezing temperatures and its been like that for the most part this winter…

I don’t make soups often so excuse the not so awesome appearances.  I’m working on it…

This was inspired by a recipe in the Looneyspoons Collection called The Chicken Soup that Flu the Coop 🙂 They always these cute names…

Ingredients

Makes 6 servings

2 tsp olive oil
1 cup each chopped onions, chopped celery and chopped carrots
1 tsp minced garlic
1 1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried marjoram
6 cups reduced sodium chicken broth
2 plum tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup chopped celery leaves
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp each salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 bone-in chicken thighs, skin removed

1) Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.  Add onions, celery, carrots and garlic.  Cook and stir until vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes.  Stir in thyme and marjoram and cook 30 more seconds.  Add broth, tomatoes, celery leaves, bay leaves, salt and pepper.  Bring soup to a boil.  Add whole chicken thighs.  Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes.

2) Carefully remove chicken thighs from pot.  When cool enough to handle, cut meat from bone and chop into bite-sized pieces.  Discard bones and return meat to pot.  Remove bay leaves. Serve hot!

As always, I made some changes to this. Instead of onions, I used shallots.  I had no celery so I used snow peas.  I don’t own any dried thyme or marjoram so after research online, it said that basil leaves and oregano leaves is a good substitute so I used that. Also, if you do use plum tomatoes, your soup will look different from mine.  I ended up using crushed tomatoes.  It was my first time with it and apparently, that looks like pure tomato sauce so I scooped 2 scoops in. I took out celery leaves and bay leaves. Also, I did not use bone in chicken thighs so I didn’t take out the chicken.  Thats why my pieces look gigantic…haha! Silly on my part but it still cooked through and tasted great 🙂

After all the modifications, aside from it looking somewhat like a mess it did taste quite good.  I’m sure if I had celery and the actual spices and tomatoes, it would taste even better.  This one is a keeper for sure.  Loved it a lot and my boyfriend approves as well.

Making this makes me miss the minestrone soup that I haven’t made in ages.  Maybe I’ll do that soon, right after I stock up on some veggies at the grocery store!

What soup do you like to make in the winter?