Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

When my husband, Bill, and I were sitting out on the patio yesterday enjoying the quiet of the morning, the air was crisp and smelled of wet earth and leaves.......full of that typical autumn scent you can't seem to get enough of. I love being out in the back yard because it's so peaceful. I can sit there and watch the birds and listen to them sing all day, laugh at the hummingbirds chasing each other around the feeder, and sometimes in the evening we can hear the barred owls hooting back and forth to one another. It's just a nice place to be, and what better way to end the day than a big simmering pot of chicken noodle soup.
I really don't know how I came up with this recipe. I think it was just something I put together one day and it's been a family favorite ever since. I always laughed when the kids would come home from school because the minute they walked through the door, they KNEW what we were having for dinner and there were smiles all around!
This is another easy recipe, one you can fix as is, or maybe add some carrots, parsnips, or other root vegetables. It freezes well and that's a good thing because this makes a lot of soup!

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

1 large, or 2 small whole chickens
5 stalks of celery, diced
2 large cans of cream of chicken soup
1 large bag of extra wide egg noodles
garlic, powder or freshly minced
poultry seasoning
salt and pepper
dried parsley flakes

Remove the gizzards from inside the chicken (these you can freeze and save to use in making your own chicken stock later), rinse the chicken well. Place in a large stock pot and fill about 2/3 with water. Add a couple tablespoons each, garlic powder and poultry seasoning. Turn burner on high and bring to a boil, then turn down to medium/medium low and let simmer about 2 to 2 1/2 hours or until the meat begins to fall off the bones.

Remove the chicken from the pot to a platter to cool, making sure you get any small bones still left in the pot.
Add both cans of cream of chicken soup to the pot and whisk until no lumps remain, then add the diced celery.
Once the chicken has cooled enough to handle, pull the meat apart, then put it back into the pot. Add a couple more tablespoons of both garlic powder and poultry seasoning, 2 tablespoons of the dried parsley, and salt and pepper to taste.

Allow this to simmer until the celery is not quite soft, then add your egg noodles. Taste the soup every so often to adjust the seasonings. Once the noodles are done, turn off the burner and it's ready to serve!
I like saltine crackers with this, but you could just as easily make some corn bread or a have a nice loaf of crusty artisan bread on the side to pull apart and dip into the soup.
Give this a try because I promise that when it's windy and cold outside and you're chilled, this will definitely warm you up and life just can't get any better.

Enjoy!

This post is part of the "On My Mind" feature over at Down To Earth