Something Squirrelly this Way Comes

Last week I had the urge to make some chicken noodle soup. And not the stuff from the can where you add water. Although I do have some of that in my pantry. Anyway, I had all the necessary ingredients noodles, chicken, chicken broth, onion, celery, carrots, garlic & spices. I don't do well with bones so I take help from the store and use boxed chicken broth as my base - let someone else deal with the bones. And since I wanted the soup soon and not a couple hours later, I used fully cooked chicken breast meat in a can. Yeah, so I'm lazy cook, what of it?

So I've got 8 cups of broth in my pot, simmering away with my chicken, garlic, celery, carrots, onion & way too much black pepper (altho I didn't know it then). The veggies are finally soft enough for me so I ladle it up and enjoy. I have it for a late lunch that day, then lunch & dinner the next day. It wasn't until I was heating the soup up for dinner that I realized I had forgotten to put the noodles in. Yeah. I'm rather observant. I had enough veggies & chicken in it that the soup was chunky, so I wasn't missing the noodles soaking up the broth.

I drop in a couple handfuls of pasta and put the container in the microwave for three minutes. Noodles are still crunchy. I heat it up for another three minutes. Noodles not as crunchy, soup steaming nicely. I let it set for a couple minutes and then nuke it for another three minutes. Soup is very hot & noodles are firm but not crunchy and plastic container feels really malleable. I decide to stop my nuking activities and wait 10 minutes for the soup to cool off enough for me to eat without scorching myself (I do have some sense, after all).

So yeah, a cooking tip from me to yall. When making chicken noodle soup, be sure to add the noodles when you're making it. It takes too long to cook them after the soup is done.