That being said, I love a real Christmas tree. And I love the tradition of picking our tree with my family. And I love watching Clark Griswold Mr. McGhee spend hours struggling to fit the "I-told-you-that-tree-would-never-fit-in-our-house" Christmas tree into the tree stand.
This is the tree I picked.
This is the tree Mr. McGhee and the boys chose.
The boys won. But in the end, the girls won. Because we got to sit and sip our coffee and watch the struggle unfold.
After a long day of Christmas tree choosing, sawing, standing, and decorating, it was only natural that we wind down with a steamy bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup.
Crockpot Chicken Noodle Soup (Just a note....you will need to start your soup the day before you actually want to eat it.
- one package of chicken legs
- one package of chicken thighs
- 8-16 cups of water (it really just depends on how much your crockpot can hold)
- 1 medium sized onion, diced
- 6 stalks celery, diced
- 8 carrots, peeled and diced
- sage
- thyme
- rosemary
- salt
- noodles (I used spaghetti, cut into 1 inch pieces)
1. Put the chicken, water, onion, celery, carrots, sage, thyme, rosemary and salt in your crockpot. Cook on low all day. Salt throughout the day.
2. Strain your chicken stock into a pot and store it in the fridge overnight. Pick the chicken off the bones and store chicken with cooked veggies in a container in the fridge overnight.
3. Skim the fat off your chicken stock (mine was solid, sort of a jelly consistency). Put it back in the crockpot and heat until warm. Add your chicken and veggies in and let simmer all day on low.
4. Before serving, cook noodles on the stove and toss them in the crockpot.
Fill your crockpot with chicken, veggies, and spices. Cook all day. Salt throughout the day.
After 8-10 hours your chicken should be cooked and floating in a golden stock.
Drain the stock and set both the stock and the veggies and shredded chicken in the fridge overnight.
After you skim your fat off the stock, warm it up and all chicken/veggies/spices back in. Cook on low all day in the crockpot.
Add cooked noodles before you serve.
This soup was a HUGE HUGE HUGE hit in the McGhee house. My child that can not be pleased picky eater ate three bowls that night! I served it with dinner rolls from Great Harvest.
