Roast chicken noodle soup

These chickens are still alive, they were not cooked for this story!

Photo: C. Mercado

I think it comes naturally to mothers to try and find ways to prepare left over food, so that our children eat it again. My culinary talents are reasonably okay, but it always is a challenge to convert something that was left from last night's dinner into another culinary delight.

This happened very recently after we had some leftover roast chicken in the fridge. I was looking to make something speedy for my hungry teen aged daughter, and thought I would make the chicken into a soup. Kara was very skeptical, having had the experience of a disastrous left over leg of ham that I tired a soup recipe for after Christmas, so she was not very enthusiastic about it.

Well, to be perfectly honest, I was a bit in a tizzy as well since I felt that Kara had already judged the meal before tasting it, so it was a real challenge for me since I needed to prove that this would be a very tasty dish. I was at least selling it as such.

So, I started chopping tomatoes, onions and garlic and sauteed them in a wok, added the chicken and some chicken flavoured broth cubes, water and left it to simmer. I was at first thinking of putting potatoes and carrots, but decided on noodles instead since Kara is a pasta freak. I rummaged through the pantry and all I could find was spaghettini. Hmm.. I decided to cut these into three pieces and added these to the soup. Seasoned it with a bit of salt and pepper, and I just left it there for a few minutes, hoping that the flavour will come out, and of course I needed to wait for the pasta to be al dente. It was smelling beautifully as well, so I had high hopes.

After ten minutes, I called out to my daughter who was studying in the basement and she asked whether we could have dinner down there. After Kara came to help carry dishes and all, I took a tray with the soup which was looking quite delectable, and asked her to take the first taste.

She tried it, and a big smile broke out on her face, it was delicious! She told me it has this had a familiar, homemade chicken taste, the kind of soup that would be very good on a really cold evening, or when one has a cold. She also said that the flavour of the roast chicken was in there somehow, and it make it a bit different from the normal chicken soup I make. Oh, we had a really nice dinner that night. There was a bit of it left and she had it for breakfast the next day!

This was a one dish that definitely did not have left overs! Now Kara thinks I can whip this up all the time. I can always try...