Chicken and rice soup

It’s still winter out there and I can’t take it anymore! For the last week now I’ve felt as if I was starting a cold; tired, sore everywhere, throat kind of scratchy, headaches… Pains in the back of the neck and top of shoulders, too. But I haven’t actually gotten sick. Yet. Hopefully, by resting and eating well, I’ll manage to avoid it.

To help things along, I decided to make some chicken and rice soup. This is the recipe with my modifications.

Hearty Chicken and Rice Soup

Ingredients

• 5 cups of chicken broth
• 3 cups of water
• 2 chicken breast halves; skin and fat removed
• 2 whole chicken legs with thighs
• 4 carrots, peeled, halved crosswise
• 4 celery stalks, quartered crosswise
• 1 onion, sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 3 bay leaves
• 4 or 5 sprigs of fresh thyme
• 2 tbs of dried basil
• 1 tbs of dried sage
• a couple of handfuls of sugar-snap peas, cut in half

• 1 cup uncooked basmati rice

• Salt and pepper to taste
• Chopped fresh parsley

Preparation

Combine first 12 ingredients in large pot. Bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until chicken is cooked through, about 35 minutes. Take 1 1/2 cups of the broth and pour it into heavy medium saucepan. Add rice, cover and bring to boil. Reduce heat to low and cook 13 minutes, without removing the cover. Remove from heat and let the rice rest 2-3 minutes, with the cover still on.

While the rice is cooking, using slotted spoon, remove onions from the broth and discard. Transfer chicken to platter. Add sugar-snap peas to broth. Pull chicken meat off bones in bite-size pieces; set aside. Discard bones and skin.

Return chicken pieces to the broth. Bring to simmer. Stir in cooked rice. Season soup with salt and pepper. Ladle soup into bowls. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

The original recipe can be found here: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Moms-Hearty-Chicken-and-Rice-Soup-103109