Soup 6: Flu Chaser

As soon as I saw is recipe, which calls for twenty cloves of garlic, I knew I would have to make it sooner rather than later. Then when Kevin got sick last week, and I woke up feeling less than great, I decided it was definitely time. This soup has all sort of goodness that's supposed to chase away colds and flus. Plus it looks delicious.

The recipe makes a ton, but after we went through the turkey soup in less than a week, I was pretty sure we could handle eating this. We'll probably get tired of soup before too much longer, though. But that just means I'll have to branch out with new recipes.

The first order of business is to peel all of the garlic. Then cover it with olive oil and bake for 45 minutes

When the garlic is getting close, start getting the rest of the soup ready. Chop up the onion, carrots, and celery and row them in your pot with the chicken. The recipe called for a whole chicken, but I couldn't find a pre-butchered one at the store. I ended up buying some breasts, thighs, and drumsticks separately.

Pour in a whole bunch of chicken stock and bring it all to a boil.

This is about the point where you once again realize that the pot you chose was too small. So transfer to the big pot. Maybe I should have cut this recipe in half...

While that's coming to a boil, strain the garlic

And measure out the spices and squeeze the lemons. I ended up having to supplement the fresh lemon juice with some bottled stuff in our fridge. It turns out that two lemons have nowhere near 3/4 cup of juice between them.

I also substituted fresh mint for dry mint because I couldn't find dried mint at the store. And fresh is probably better anyway. When the soup is boiling, throw all of this in and let it simmer for 2 1/2 hours.

Well the recipe said 2 1/2 hours or until the chicken is very tender. After a little more than an hour, the chicken was literally falling off the bone. I figured it was done. At this point, start cooking some rice and pull all of the chicken out.

Use a couple of forks to pull the chicken off the bone and shred it.

Toss the shredded chicken and the cooked rice back into the pot and bring it all back to a boil. Salt to taste and serve!

I switched back to the other pot when I pulled the chicken out. This was mostly to make sure I had gotten all the bones and skin out. But it's also easier to store the soup in this pot, since it fits in the fridge.