Good From Your Toes To Your Nose Chicken Noodle Soup

1 medium onion
6 stalks celery
6 carrots, peeled
2 cups corn, frozen or canned
4 cups cooked chicken
2 quarts Chicken stock or broth
1 cup heavy cream
1 stick butter
2 tbsp Dried Parsley
1 tbsp Garlic Salt
1/2lb Wide Egg Noddles
1 tbsp Salt
1 tbsp Pepper

• Chop onion, carrots and celery into even bite sized pieces.
• Place about 2 tbsp Olive Oil in large stock pot over medium high heat.
• Add onions and cook about 3 minutes or until soft and almost translucent
• Add carrots and celery and cook about 5 minutes more or until veggies are just soft.
• Meanwhile in a small sauce pot, add cream (half and half or milk will work fine here too) and place over low heat. Add butter.
• Stir cream and butter mixture occasionally until butter is just melted. Remove from heat and set aside.
• Once veggies have softened, add Chicken stock and bring to a boil.
• Add noodles and boil until just cooked, about 6 minutes.
• Turn heat to low
  
• Then add corn, chicken, parsley, garlic salt, salt and pepper.
  
• Next add cream and butter mixture and stir to combine.
• Simmer for about 15 minutes so that all ingredients can marry and flavors can come together.
• Spoon into bowls and serve.

Word to the Wise:

I love this soup. It is so hardy and rich and make a perfect meal on a cold day. This soup will freeze well. If you want a lighter version, just omit that cream and use milk or you can omit the cream and butter all together but the soup will not be as good.

For the chicken in the soup, I have used left over Thanksgiving turkey, Rotisserie chicken, cooked chicken breast and grilled tenderloins. It is really about what ever you have in the house. I have not used ground chicken but I am use that would work. The only thing with the chicken is to make sure that it is cooked.

The above recipe makes one large pot of soup. The amount of each ingredient can be decreased or increased to best suit your needs. The consistency of this soup is more like a stew than a soup and that is how my family likes it. If you want a thinner soup just add more chicken stock until (water can be used too) it gets to the consistency of your liking.

This soup is really easy and comes together very quickly, it is the perfect busy weekend supper. Serve with bread and you got dinner.

Tex-Mex Chicken Skillet

1lb box Whole wheat Penne pasts
3 boneless skinless chicken breast cut into cubes
1 1/4 cups Salsa
1 can corn (frozen will work as well)
1 green pepper, chopped
1 cup Cheese

• Cook pasta according to directions
• In a large skillet grease bottom of pan and cook chicken, about 2 minutes
• Add salsa, corn and peppers
• Bring to a boil, then simmer on low for 10 minutes or unitl chicken is cooked, stirring occasionally
• Drain pasta
• Add to chicken mixture, mix lightly and stir in cheese.
• Let stand about 5 minutes before serving

Words to the Wise:
I love this dish and so does the family. It is still a pasta dish so the kids love it but it has different flavors than another spaghetti dish. I have also added black beans to this recipe in the past. It just adds more texture and bumps up the fiber.
This recipe is from Kraft Food and Family.

Sausage Beans with Rice

1 onion chopped
1 green pepper chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
Olive Oil
1lb lite smoked sausage
1 can kidney beans, rinsed
1 can great northern beans, rinsed
1 cup instant brown rice
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup ketchup
3 tablespoon light corn syrup
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

• Coat a large skillet with olive oil, saute the onion, green pepper and garlic until soft.
  
• Stir in remaining ingredients.
• Simmer until rice is cooked about 15 or 20 minutes
  
• Serve

Words to the Wise:
You gotta love a one pan meal!