15-Minute Chicken Noodle Soup

A.k.a. Oh, snap - Husband is sick and wants soup before he goes off to work... and I have ten (or fifteen) minutes to make something wonderful.

Ta-da!

Abby's Desperation Soup

Serves 4

1 can condensed chicken noodle soup

1 14.5 oz. can chicken broth

1 4 oz. can mushroom stems and pieces

1 boneless chicken breast, boiled and pieced

5 baby carrots, sliced into very thin circles

1 stick celery, sliced into very thin pieces

1/2 med. onion, sliced thin, then chopped

dash of Lawry's season salt

few twists of ground peppercorns

1. Dump all canned foodstuffs into a soup pot, heat on med-high until bubbly, then turn down to medium.

2. Take a frozen lump of three chicken breasts out of the freezer, and boil. (Maybe, possibly, separating one as soon as possible and cooking it faster in it's own little pot. You'll figure out what to do with the other two chicken breasts another day...)

2. Cut carrots with great rapidity (without slicing fingers) and cook in the microwave with enough water to nearly cover them, for 1:30. (They won't boil fast enough to be ready with the other vegetables, so give them a bit of a head start.)

3. Slice celery and onion, place in soup pot to boil.

4. Add carrots, water and all.

5. Add salt and pepper, and stir all together and let simmer.

6. Check doneness of chicken, if mostly (or all) done, cut in small chunks and throw in the soup pot. It will finish cooking in the soup.

7. Once chicken is added to the soup, let it come to a boil again, and let bubble for a few more minutes.

8. Take the ceramic bowl you've put in the freezer ten minutes before, and fill it with as much soup as your husband wishes. Then add two ice cubes, and stir - so as to be eaten posthaste. Voila! Dinner in fifteen minutes.

Seriously, though, if I don't get him fed before a certain point, he goes without until things are quiet and he can come back to eat - often 11:00pm or later. Today, I was tending to my poor little bunny until late, then had to jump straight to dinner. Our old standby for a quick meal is making breakfast (bacon or sausage and eggs and a piece of toast or biscuit) - but today he could't think of eating an egg or anything breakfast.... and wanted chicken soup. Thirty minutes before he would be on duty. Eeep! So I flew - and here is the recipe to prove it. :)