Tracie’s daughter Erica here!  I’m a teacher, and let me tell you, there is nothing better than a snow day on a Monday!  Especially if you didn’t manage to get anything done over the weekend, except binge on Netflix.  Today was wonderful!  After spending about 30 minutes warming up and cleaning off my car, I happily went to the grocery store bright and early.  There was barely anyone but employees there–it was great.  I knew I wanted to make some chicken noodle soup, as well as get the ingredients for a pot of Mom’s “Sunday Gravy” (recipe on here somewhere).  I ended up getting all that, plus stuff to make meatballs.  Came home, started a pot of coffee, and unpacked all the groceries.  Now I don’t know if it was the whole pot of coffee or just my normal, once-in-awhile symptoms of mania, but I decided I was going to make all three recipes and store them in the fridge for the rest of the week.  You see, my husband plows snow in the winter and I never know when he is or is not going to be home, so if everything is already portioned out into tupperware all he has to do is reheat.  When I am not as ambitious (which is 90% of the time), I buy a bag of frozen chicken tenders and some frozen pizzas, toss em in the freezer and make him fend for himself.  Don’t judge.  I’m tired during the week!  Anyway, what ended up happening out of all those plans and ingredients is the recipe below, as well as a pot of sauce, and a meatloaf (the meatballs seemed like too much hassle). ¡Buen Provecho!

Materials:
Large saucepan or Dutch Oven
Large cutting board
Your favorite wooden spoon
Your favorite chef knife
Veggie peeler
Bowl for scraps/trash
Two cup measuring cup
A couple spoons (for mixing roux, and tasting)

Beginning:
2 Tb (give or take) olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 cup celery, diced
2 whole peeled carrots, sliced
1 garlic clove, minced
Salt and pepper
Herbs de Provence
Sriracha sauce

Middle:
1 lb rotisserie chicken meat (lazily) shredded
*mine came from Heinen’s in separate packages already off the bone (.5 lb. light meat, .5 lb. dark meat)
1 Tb of your favorite poultry seasoning (I used Cajun)
1.5 (32 oz) cartons of Chicken Stock
1 (1.5 oz) chicken stock reduction (jelly consistency) (NOT THE CUBES!)
*the brand I used was More Than Gourmet (Glace de Poulet)
couple cups of water as needed

End:
bag of kluski egg noodles
.5 cup of water
3 Tb. flour
splash of half and half cream
few teaspoons of hot stock (to temper)
fresh chopped parsley for garnish (optional)

Recipe
Heat olive oil over medium high heat until shimmering.  Add the onion, celery, and carrots.  Sauté until onions and celery are soft, or near translucent.  Throw in the garlic and stir until fragrant (about one minute).  Salt and pepper everything.  Sprinkle in some Herbs de Provence.  Drizzle in some sriracha, like you would decorate a dessert plate with chocolate sauce (of course that’s the first thing I think of, ugh!).  Now stir all that stuff up!

Season all your chicken with your favorite mixture (I used Cajun because it was literally right in my face when I opened the cupboard and it sounded good).  Toss the chicken into the pan.  Stir in one full carton of your chicken stock and bring the mixture to a gentle boil.  Once boiling, pop in that bouillon/jelly stuff and do your best to whisk it around and break it up.  It should essentially dissolve.  Here is where you can decide to add in the rest of the chicken stock and/or some water.  I did both!  Turn the heat down to a simmer and let cook for at least an hour.

After an hour, and when you feel like the soup is tasting good, mix in the bag of egg noodles.  Turn the heat up to medium low, stirring occasionally for at least ten minutes.  Now you can stop here and have a delicious chicken noodle soup, OR, you can make a roux to thicken it up and have a good ol’ comforting pot of chicken noodle stew.  If you choose to take the stew route, all you need to do now is take a half cup of water and mix in flour and cream.  Add some of your hot stock to the mixture to temper.  Finally, turn your soup/stew back down to a simmer and stir in your roux!  Let that cook for an additional ten minutes, then serve garnished with parsley!

Note:
I personally like to quickly clean my kitchen and lay out all my materials and ingredients before I begin any cooking adventure; hence the reason I added a “materials” section above.  After my kitchen is clean, I prep everything into prep bowls or designated areas on the counter.  Before I even turn on the burners, I throw away all the trash/scraps (always have a scrap bowl next to you for easy clean up) and wipe down the counters.  Then, while I’m waiting for my olive oil to heat up I unload (or start) the dishwasher.  I find that doing this creates a much more peaceful cooking experience.  My mother on the other hand literally destroys her kitchen, which makes me crazy, and is probably the reason I am so compulsive.  Sorry Mom, it’s true!