Chicken Noodle Soup

As I mentioned the other day I was going to be making some chicken noodle soup to freeze for the winter. I had been organizing my pantry when I came across 8 cartons of chicken broth that needed to be used asap.

Now I've never made chicken noodle soup before. I usually preferred the canned variety. I knew pretty much what needed to be in the soup but wasn't sure how it was to be made. Off to the Internet I went. There are TONS of different soup recipes! After looking through a few of them I pretty much had it figured out how I was going to make my soup.

This soup...



This one bowl of soup that I had to test turned out to be the BEST chicken noodle soup ever!! I don't usually like to toot my own horn, but I was so impressed with how well and nummy it turned out.

It turned out so well that I just had to share my recipe!

I found the biggest pot that I had, which turned out to be my canning pot, because I had 8 cartons of chicken broth. So start with a very large pot.

In my pot I put...

8 cartons = 8 quarts of chicken broth
3-4 quarts of water
2 whole chickens

I used two whole chickens that were about 3 pounds each. We had purchased these from a local farm and I put them right in to cook. You could also use rotisserie chickens from the grocery store if you wanted to save some time.

I added...
2 stalks of celery (chopped up)
1 large bag (from Sam's) of carrots (chopped up)
1 onion (chopped up)

That's it!! You can add other things if you want or fewer things if you want.

I let this cook for a few hours until the chicken meat was starting to fall off the bone. I pulled out the chickens and let them cool. Once they were cool I picked off all the meat and put it back into the pot. I added some pepper and some seasoning. I found I had oregano and bay leaves on hand.

Then I added 2 large bags of egg noodles and let them cook. Once they were cooked I took it off the stove. It's possible that the noodles might get a little mushy once reheated so you may not want to cook them all the way if you prefer they are more "al dente". You could even cook them and add them when you were going to eat the soup.

Either way this was so easy and made a ton of soup!!



Then I got out my Food Saver and put about 2.5 quarts in each one. I now have 6 very large bags of frozen soup for the winter.



I love stocking my pantry and freezer with food!!

Crazy Busy"ness"

I realize that I haven't been on here much, but I've been so busy lately.

I canned peaches today for the first time. They turned out well. I need to get more peaches. I also wish that peaches grew here locally. They will be nice to have in the middle of winter though.

The kids and I went shopping a little today. We found their Halloween costumes! They are very cute and weren't as expensive as I was thinking so it was great to get that done.

I was organizing my pantry (for all my new canned items) and found that I have 8 cartons of chicken broth that will be going bad, so I also have to make bunches of chicken noodle soup and freeze that for the winter.

I also need to continue with my painting of the playhouse. The weather is finally nice, but the food has taken a priority over that.

My package from JoAnn's came today with my Velcro. I've been selling my reusable sandwich bags on E-Bay and they've been selling really well, so I need to make more, but I didn't have anymore Velcro. Now I have those to make also.

See...I've been very busy.

I told you that I would put pictures up of the trip to the zoo last week and I usually follow up on these things. :) Nana and I took cousin Damien, Ella and Sam to the Como Zoo. They loved the butterfly exhibit and the new baby giraffe was really cute too!

Happy Anniversary

Tomorrow is our 9 year anniversary! I can't believe it's been that long already. Although some days it seems like it's been a lifetime! :)

We have nothing special going on. We're going out to eat later in the week. I was looking for a picture that I already had on my computer of our wedding day and this was the only one I found. I'm too lazy to get another one on here...



Then as I was looking for another picture I came across one of my favorite photos that has nothing to do with our anniversary. It's Sammy when he was a baby...



Ha ha, makes me smile every time. He's always been such a stinker.

We went to the Como Zoo today with the kids and cousin. I'll post pictures on another post soon. I started painting the playhouse today. That's going to be a pain in the butt to do, but I just need to get it done.

I took Romeo for a walk tonight. It's such a beautiful evening out. I love these fallish days with the cooler evenings.

The Fair

We headed out this morning to the fair. I've been dying to go since it opened, but with the delay comes beautiful weather. It's the nicest day we've had in a long time. It was so nice to open the windows this morning and let the cooler, drier air come right in.

If you recall I entered my raspberry jam into the canning competition at the fair. Well guess what??? I won first place in the raspberry jam division!!



I'm so excited and proud of my jam! I can't wait to enter more things next year. The kids had a fun time at the fair too. They loved checking out the tractors and Bobcats.







The food is always good. In fact it's my favorite thing about the fair. It's a good thing it's only once a year because it's so not good for you and quite expensive.

The kids favorite is definitely the cotton candy. They gobbled it down with their sticky fingers.

After the fair we went to REI. Yesterday we bought a canoe!! It was a pretty good deal on a used one. It's an aluminum canoe that's older than I am. I actually didn't know how old it was until I saw the registration on it. It's in great shape and will last us many, many years. They made them quite well back then. So we had to go buy another paddle and some attachments for the car. We'll have fun using the canoe. The kids will really enjoy getting out on the water. Maybe doing a little fishing too.

Only three weeks until school starts! Ella got her packet in the mail yesterday that had her teacher's name and other information. The summer is going by way too fast!!

Laundry Room

Our laundry room is right inside the door to the garage. It can get a little tight when there are more than just one or two people in the room. There is a closet also in that room. We'd contemplated taking out the closet and moving the washer and drying into that space thus creating a more open entry area.

Unfortunately this would be quite an expense and mess, so we've decided to hold off on that decision for now. I had a shelf in the closet to hold my laundry soap and other essentials in it. I told Zan that I wanted cabinets over the washer and drying to hold these things.

Yesterday I remembered that I had some shelving that we were no longer using. I had Zan cut the boards to the size I needed and hung them up myself. Ella and I went to pick out some bins for the shelves.

I bring you my new laundry area that only cost us $25 for bins.



You can see the edge of the closet door next to the washer. I took the shelf out of that closet and it's great.

We're going to build a shelf for inside the closet that will include a space for shoes and other things. The closet isn't too big and you can't hang anything in the closet behind the door because the door will hit it when open. So building a shelf back there is a great use of that space and will make the closet much more user friendly.

Zan loves it when I get on an organizing kick!!! I'm sure he can't wait for my next project! :)

Random Bulleted List

Here's my update from the past week -- in bullet form.

* My Internet just locked up on my and now I have to type this whole post out again. I was almost done with it before it crashed.

* We've made good progress on the playhouse. We put up the walls on top of the deck last night.



* Ella cracks me up when she tells Sam that they toys don't understand them because they only speak Spanish. Then they proceed to say a few Spanish words. Thank you Dora!

* Friday afternoon a 2-Liter soda bottle fell out of the refrigerator and landed bottle cap side down on my foot. I thought it might have been broken, but after a few hours it was starting to get better.



* I just finished grooming Romeo. I started in June and for the past few months he's looked like a badly groomed poodle. At least he's blind and can't see himself.

* We picked up most of Ella's school supplies this morning. I can't believe that school starts in one month.

* The house next door to us sold. I'm very interested to see who moves in. For those of you who wanted to live next door to us there is still the lot behind us available. :)

* I made grape jelly last week. I currently have apples simmering on the stove to make apple juice with. I will then make apple jelly with that.

* I feel like I'm forgetting something since I had to start over...

* I made and have been using homemade deodorant for a couple weeks and love it!! I'll have to do a separate post on that one though.

* Ella loves it when I make popcorn in the afternoons and give her a little bowl all for herself.

I think that's about all for now!