Hearty Winter Chicken Noodle Soup

Appropriate name, huh? Nathan loves soup. He says, "I like the broth." He really likes chicken noodle because chicken is his favorite meat. Soup usually makes a lot, and Monday is our rent-a-family night. A lot of times I will make soup, we will eat a bunch of it, and I will freeze the rest. So I thought soup would be a good meal for a lot of eaters. Plus we haven't had soup with them in a while, and it's good to give your guinea pigs a varied diet hahahaha. I don't like peas, and neither do Nathan and Emma, but Steve does, so once in a while I'll throw them in something that I can easily pick around in. When you're eating soup, they can just flow right off your spoon if you don't want them. This is from the Everything Soup Cookbook.

Hearty Winter Chicken Noodle Soup
3 chicken quarters (about 2 lbs total)(I tried to find split breasts but couldn't...I ended up with 4 chicken thighs and I threw a boneless breast in there to have some white meat too)
4 cups water
1/2 cup chopped celery, plus 2 stalks celery thinly sliced
2 tbsp fresh chopped parsley (I just used a sprinkle of dried)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried thyme, crushed
1/4 tsp pepper
1 bay leaf
4 carrots, sliced
3 onions, chopped
3 cups packaged dried egg noodles
2 cups milk, divided
1 cup frozen peas
2 tbsp flour

Skin the chicken (gross but necessary or the soup would be SO fatty). Rinse the chicken and pat dry with paper towels. In a large Dutch oven, place the chicken, water, chopped celery, parsley, salt, thyme, pepper, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, for 30 minutes.

Add the sliced celery, carrots, and onions; simmer, covered, another 30 minutes, or until chicken is tender and no longer pink. Remove from heat. Discard bay leaf. Remove chicken with slotted spoon; let cool slightly. Debone the chicken (I HATE doing that); discard bones. Chop chicken and set aside.

Bring the soup back to a boil. Add the noodles; cook for 5 minutes. Stir in 1 1/2 cups milk and the peas. Combine the remaining flour and milk in a screw-top jar (I had a Tupperware thing I used for that). Cover and shake until smooth; stir into soup. Cook, stirring, until thickened and bubbly. Stir in chicken. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes more, or until heated through.

This soup had very little broth (sorry Nathan). It might be my own fault because I didn't measure the noodles, I just eyeballed it. It was good, everybody ate it, but it wasn't great. Maybe more herbs or something would have helped. So a good meal but not going to keep this one.