Chicken Noodle Soup

One of the classic comforts of home is chicken noodle soup. It might come out of a can, it might be from scratch. One thing is certain- it's feels good to eat a big bowl of chicken noodle soup. This is a fairly quick soup to make and simple. This recipe will serve about 4, I didn't want to make very much, but double it if you have more mouths to feed!

Ingredients:

6 cups of low sodium chicken broth

1 skinless, boneless chicken breast

1 yellow onion, diced

2 carrots, peeled and sliced

2 celery stalks, sliced

Dried thin egg noodles (how much is up to you)

3 TB finely chopped fresh Italian parsley

Salt and ground pepper

Step One: Bring chicken broth to a simmer and add the chicken. Simmer until no pink remains. Remove from heat and allow to cool for a while (You can use that time to work on your veggies).

(Looking back, I should have cut the chicken breast in half so that it was completely covered by the broth. It took about 30 min for this breast to cook all the way through. If you cut it down the middle length wise, I suspect it'd take 12 or 15 min.)

Step 2: As chicken is simmering, prepare or finishing preparing the veggies.

If you like your soup with more broth, you'll want to omit some of the veggies AFTER they have cooked in the broth. You don't want to loose any of that wonderful flavor.

Step 3:

Transfer chicken to a cutting board. Return the broth to a simmer on medium-high heat and add the veggies. Simmer veggies about 10 min or until lightly soft.

Step 4:

Shred or cube chicken and chop parsley

Step 5:

Do your best to skim away any foam on the top of the soup. At this time you can remove some of the veggies if it's too much for your taste.

Step 6:

Add noodles and 3/4th of the parsley. Season will salt and pepper to your taste. Simmer until the noodles are tender, about 3-5 min depending on how many you use and what size pan you are using.

I used around 5 oz of noodles, which is a lot. You can use as few as 2 oz though.

Keep warm until ready to serve. Scoop into warm bowls and sprinkle with the remaining parsley. Curl up on the couch and watch a good movie!

Y'all Enjoy!

Thankful

Today has been a positive day, it really has. Which is a bit different because things have been a little tough this week. Having a very sore throat and loads of ear pressure doesn't help when I'm trying to write a huge bible paper I've been putting off all semester! After much hard work and 8 hours in the library so far this week I've written the bulk of my paper! The rest is a breeze. I've got to write my introduction and conclusion, then add footnotes and do my bibliography. That's it! So I'm taking a break to write some of things that made me very happy today despite feeling awful and sleepy.

1. Last night I slept on the couch, mostly because when I feel sick I become irritable and just the sound of breathing will take over my mind. I also couldn't sleep because I thinking about my throat hurting. I was watching "16 and Pregnant" on MTV until 3 in the morning. I was a sleepy camper. BUT here comes the good part. When Blake woke up he came and got me and walked me into the bed. He re-set my alarm to later time so I would get more sleep. That made me so happy :)

2. I got a Starbucks pumpkin spiced latte and a piece of pumpkin bread before my afternoon class.

3. I was able to get a book that I've already read approved for my book review for a class. That means I don't have to read a whole book next week!

4. At tutoring today this sweet kindergartner boy ran up to me and gave me the biggest hug and said "MS. KRISTIN!!!!!!" :)

5. Blake went and got me chick-fil-a for dinner.

6. I joked about wanting a brownie from there and he went BACK out and got me a brownie from there AND cookies from McDonalds so I would have something another time. Though I told him not to go out at all!

7. I've gotten a lot done on my paper

8. The weekend is coming soon

All these things have made my day feel positive even though I'm not feeling good. That's a "God thing". God is watching over me, and hearing my prayers. I'm so thankful for how He's blessing me.

Driving Peeves

This has nothing to do with being a wife or with cooking or with crafting.

It has everything to do with being a citizen and a driver. Can you relate to those two things? OK... good... now listen up.

There are a couple of driving rules that people forget about and when they do I loose my patience with them. I have to take deep breaths and think about Christmas music.

Always be sure you can see the tires of the car in front of you!

When people ride my tail it makes me want to drive slower not faster.... in fact it makes me want to drive in the center of both lanes really slow so that they can not pass by. (But don't worry I don't do that last thing)

When I'm stopped at red lights I like to leave a pretty good distance if I can. If someone should hit the car behind me and they hit me I would like to not hit the person in front of me, or at least not cause much damage.

Let me just say that I would like for the person behind me to be so respectful themselves. Many times they are. Many times they are not.

And when they are not... I scoot up a little bit. And then some people are rude and scoot up more... so that they are still on my tail. So I scoot up a bit more... and go figure they scoot up more. At this point I have my sunglasses off and am looking at them through my mirrors not hiding the fact that I'm annoyed with them. I scoot up a bit more... but I can't do this much more because then I'll loose too much space between the car in front of me. This just really works my nerves.

And if the person is a huge car it works my nerves even more... because I think about what that huge thing could do to my little car if they got a big hit.

Anyways... this morning there was some lady in a fancy smancy Lexus mini SUV who was doing this to me. So I decided to write about this and plead with anyone reading this to NOT drive like that. Leave some space between you and the car in front of you please!

My other biggest driving peeve is when people don't know how to merge. Oh my goodness does that one drive me crazy. I'll pull my horn out on that. Or when people pass every one up to cut. That makes me mad too. If I can I'll pull out to the middle to keep people from cutting. Yes I'm one of those people.... but if you've had 2 miles of warning signs it's time to get over. I love it when the huge 18 wheelers will block so people can't cut. That just makes me smile.

But anyways.... please be a respectful driver!

What are your driving peeves?