Seasonal Healing Part 2

I believe that nutrition plays an even bigger roll in our healing than medicines. So today I present to you my No-Recipe Chicken and Brown Rice Soup. (I say "no-recipe" because I didn't follow one--it's typical of me, I was raised with a little Italian Granny living in my house)

Cast of Characters (Take Two):
Carrots
Celery
Garlic
Onion
Parsley
Thyme
Salt and Pepper
Whole Chicken Legs (its important that they are not deboned or skinned)

Step I
Mid-morning some time (like when the baby takes his first nap)
1. Chop half of onion, half cup parsley, several cloves of garlic. and a few sprigs of thyme plucked (is that the right term for taking those tiny leaves off of fresh thyme?)
2. Fill soup pot 2/3's full of water
3. Rinse chicken legs. You can do this with a whole chicken, but be prepared for a lot more work. Also leave the bones and skin on.
4. Simmer for 1 hour. It can come to a boil a few times, but don't do that for too long

*** If you want to make your broth in the slow cooker use high for about 3 hours or until the chicken is done and falling off the bones.

Once you get soft chicken that is falling off the bones pull the chicken out of the pot and shred. Place in small bowl with lid in fridge.
Let the broth cool enough to place entire pot in fridge to cool.

Step II
Later that afternoon (like when the baby takes his second nap)
1. Chop several carrots (I did 4 but you can do more if you need more soup)
2. Chop celery (I did 3 stalks) and rest of onion
3. Cook Brown Rice (follow directions on back of bag)
4. Chop 1/3 cup parsley
5. Chop a lot of garlic... its great for healing fevers so get crazy!
6. Pull out the pot of broth and skim all the fat off the top (I just used a spoon) and using a slotted spoon scoop all of the onions out of the bottom.

Congratulations you now have a beautiful pot of chicken broth.

Finally saute for 6 minutes your veggies and garlic. Dump sauteed veggies, rice, parsley and chicken into pot. Warm and eat up!

Happy Cooking.