Autumn Spice Chicken Noodle Soup

Optional: I also like to throw in a few juniper berries, a couple chunks of fresh peeled ginger and a few whole cardamom seeds (or some ground cardamom).

In a small-to-medium sized stockpot, add all the ingredients and bring to a boil. Then turn on low (I set my burner to “2”) so that it is still boiling very lightly. Keep uncovered, and boil for 1 hour. Every 15 minutes or so, skim off the fat from the top, making sure that you’re careful not to take too much of the spices, onions or other “good stuff.”

After an hour and a half, take the chicken breasts out and let them cool on a plate for about 15 minutes. Keep the soup stock at the same temperature, still simmering while the chicken is cooling. When chicken is cool enough to handle, pull off the good breast meat and shred into small pieces. Put the good breast meat back on the plate, cover and put in the fridge. Put the bones of the chicken back into the stock pot, and simmer for another hour. After the hour is up, take the bones out, and try to fish around and pull out the apple chunks and garlic chunks (if you’re not able to get the garlic, no worries). Add the noodles and shredded chicken. Turn on medium to bring to a strong boil, and then turn on low again for another half-hour. Total cook time should be about 3 hours. Season to taste (meaning add more salt if you think you need it). Serve hot with fresh, crusty bread or crackers.

Another optional step: I also sometimes like to make this into a creamy chicken noodle soup. In that case, before adding the shredded chicken and noodles, I’ll take 1/2 cup of heavy cream and three eggs and put that into a small bowl. Beat the cream into the eggs until it’s well mixed. Then taking a ladle, pour a little bit of the hot soup/stock into the bowl, and whisk. Then take a little bit more, pour it in, and whisk. Keep doing that until you’ve poured about a cup of the soup in with the egg mixture (this is to ensure that you don’t actually cook the eggs when the egg mixture comes in contact with the hot liquid). Once you’ve got a cup or so of hot soup whisked with the eggs and cream in the bowl, pour the whole egg mixture into the soup pot. Stir thoroughly.