Doesn't soup sound good right about now?  I like it during the winter when it's cold outside.  And it's cold enough here lately.  I've made this recipe several years ago and my family all liked it.  Shocker right?  

Now, chicken noodle soup is a total comfort food.  It warms the soul.  It warmed my husband up last night.  He came home from work and didn't have the greatest of days.  We sat down for dinner and his whole attitude changed.  The day just seemed to fade away.

Most chicken noodle soups hardly has any chicken in and too much broth.  Not this recipe.  My husband said it almost could have more broth!  A whole chicken went into this recipe.  Now, that's a lot of chicken.  

Seriously, there is that much chicken in my soup, just like the picture shows.  Tonight, I actually added a can of chicken broth because it was looking more like chicken noodle stew.  Here's the recipe:

Sicilian Chicken Soup

Ingredients

• 1 4-5 pound whole chicken giblets removed
• 1 yellow onion finely chopped
• 4 celery ribs diced
• 3 carrots or 12 mini carrots diced
• 2 red bell peppers diced
• 2 medium russet potatoes peeled and diced into 1/2 -inch diced, you may use any baking potato
• 14.5 ounces diced tomatoes
• 1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf Italian parsley
• 5 garlic cloves minced, I use my garlic press
• Kosher salt and black pepper to taste
• 1/2 pound ditalini pasta

Instructions

• In a large soup pot place whole chicken, onion, red peppers, celery, carrots, potatoes, diced tomatoes with their juices and then add enough cold water to cover by 1 inch. Over high heat bring to a boil. Then add parsley, garlic, 1 tablespoon of salt and pepper.

• Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover partially with a lid. Let it simmer for 2 hours, or until chicken is falling off the bone. Remove chicken and let it cool, for 30 minutes or until cool to the touch. Reduce heat to low and let the soup continue to simmer.

• Remove all the meat from the chicken and shred the chicken into large pieces. Discard the skin and bones.

• In a medium saucepan cook pasta as directed on box. Drain well and set aside in a bowl.

• Using a potato masher, mash the soup around a few times, letting some of the potatoes get a little smashed. I don’t try too hard on this, I just mash 2-3 times and call it good. Add the shredded chicken and noodles to the pot. **We actually like to serve the serve the soup with the noodles on the side, letting each person add the amount of noodles they want.*

After you get done cooking the chicken, it literally falls off the bone.  I had to get a skimmer, of sorts, to get all the chicken and bones out of the broth.  Shredding the chicken isn't hard.  It was practlcally falling apart anyway.  

I gotta warn you...this recipe does make a large pot full so be very hungry.  It's either that or plan on a lot of leftovers.

Here is where I found the recipe:  https://www.dashofsanity.com/sicilian-chicken-soup/

Until next time...Stampin' Always,

Cheryl, HomeStyle Stamper