Cold Curing Homemade Chicken Soup

Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to chicken soup. Its one of those comfort foods. Nobody likes any version better than the kind their Mother made them on cold winter evenings, and sick days. Be it Campbell's canned chicken noodle or one from scratch, comfort food is comfort food.  We all like it the way we like it, my oldest brother for example can't stand carrots in his soup, whereas my father prefers rice to noodles. If however, one would like to branch out, try something new or simply has never made chicken soup before, I encourage them to embark on this endeavoring to create the healthiest most nourishing chicken soup possible.

Chicken Soup ingredients:
1.5 to 2 lbs Chicken Thighs
4 large Carrots
3 Celery stalks
1/2 large Onion
3 Cloves of Garlic (minced)
2 chives
2 cups uncooked Brown Rice
1 tsp Cayenne pepper
1 tsp Paprika
2 tsp Black pepper
1/2 cup spinach, (cut into 1 in pieces)
12 cups of water

Spinach in disposable tea bags right after water was added

Soup Directions:

In a large sauce pan put ten cups of water and chicken thighs into boil. Boil for about ten minutes or until the thighs are just slightly pink in the middle, (slightly under cooked). Pull cooked chicken from the water to clean and cut, make sure to save the water this will be your chicken broth. Add the rice to saucepan with the water. In glass measuring bowl put cut spinach into either disposable loose leaf tea bags or a tea ball and pour two cups of boiling water over them, letting the spinach steep. While rice cooks clean and chop carrot, celery, onion, chives and garlic. Add chicken, chopped carrot as well as the finely diced chives, onion and garlic into the pot with the rice. At this point the rice should be soft but not fully cooked. Let ingredients simmer for about ten minutes this will ensure the chicken and rice are fully cooked without being over cooked. The spinach water should be a bright green by this point, remove and dispose of the spinach, leaving you with the vitamin rich spinach water. Pour water into pot as well as adding all remaining ingredients (celery, cayenne, paprika, and black pepper).

Vitamin rich spinach water

Everyone makes their soup differently, but this is how I make my Cold Curing Homemade Chicken Soup and this is why: boiled vegetables lose large amounts of their vitamins and nutrients. This is one of the reasons behind adding the water from steeping spinach in boiling water.   Spinach when boiled loses 10 to 15 percent of its A,  B-6 and B-12 vitamins as well as antioxidants lycopene, lutein and zeaxanthin, 60 to 65 percent  of its Vitamin C and Folate and 15-20 percent of its Iron. So in using the water from the steeped Spinach I am  introducing those health prompting vitamins into the soup.  I used Chicken thighs instead of chicken breasts, because thighs are a lot fattier than breasts. If you boil chicken thighs it produces a richer broth, therefor making it unnecessary to add extra chicken stock or bouillon both of which can be very high in sodium.  Every ingredient used has its own properties that make it beneficial. Chives, onions, and celery are all diuretic, which helps flush the system.  Also Onion, garlic, Cayenne, paprika and black pepper are all expectorants, which in layman's terms means they promote the expulsion of phlegm, mucus and other matter from the respiratory tract. So if you're trying to kick a bug or simply trying out new healthy recipes  as far as Chicken soup goes, this one is pretty good with its anti-hypertensive promoting garlic and its all around vitamin rich goodness.