Vegetable Soup

[peteyfrogboy]

I've never been a huge vegetable soup fan, but I think that's mainly because I've only been exposed to lame canned veggie soup. I've been experimenting recently and I think I've hit on something very tasty. This soup only has four ingredients: chicken stock, noodles, green beans, and tomatoes.

This batch of soup started with $.79/lb. leg quarters, which were too cheap to pass up. We got two packs of them, which was eight quarters total (about 8 lbs.). After some consideration, I separated all the thighs and drumsticks, took the bones out of the thighs, and set the thighs (with skin) aside to make soyu chicken.

The drumsticks (with skin removed), thigh bones, and backs (yay leg quarters!) went in the crock pot with half a bunch of celery and half an onion that I had left over in the freezer from my last soup. I added enough water to cover everything, about a tablespoon of salt, maybe 20 peppercorns, and 3 bay leaves. That went on low overnight for about 12 hours. 

In the morning, I picked all the meat off the drumsticks and set it aside for later (it'll probably end up in fried rice) and strained the stock into a large metal bowl. After letting it cool off some, I covered it with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge to chill completely. After a day or so it had gelled, with an easily removed layer of fat on top.

I put the stock went into a large pot on the stove. While it was coming to a boil, I chopped up some fresh green beans into roughly 1/2" pieces. These were sauteed in a pan with some olive oil, salt, and pepper until about halfway done. While they were in the pan, I put half a bag of no-yolk egg noodles in the boiling stock. Previously I had used rotini, and I really wanted ditalini, but these were the noodles I had and they worked just fine. About halfway through cooking the noodles, I tossed the green beans into the pot, along with a can of diced tomatoes (with basil and oregano!). I turned the heat down and let everything simmer until the noodles and green beans were done.

The soup was served with bread (baked this morning) and butter, and made a lovely lunch. It should make good lunches for the rest of the week, too!