Noodle Bar/Chicken Soup Deconstructed

Healthy, delicious and interactive, the noodle bar can be fun for the whole family.  My friend, Chance, made a delicious Asian broth by putting a whole chicken, an onion, a stalk of lemon grass, 2 kaffir lime leaves, dry chicken bouillon, 3-4 cloves of garlic, several spoonfuls of sugar and a drizzle of fish sauce in a big pot of cold water and simmered it for 2 hours.  Meanwhile we shredded cabbage and cucumbers, chopped cilantro and green onions, and peeled the meat off the chicken.  Then she made a pot of rice noodles.  All these components were laid out with 4 different Asian sauces, and the guests assembled their own bowls of soup.  I love to adapt this idea for a week-night dinner, especially when a play date turns into a casual dinner party.  With finicky eaters like my daughter who loves carrots and noodles, and my son who only eats chicken and broth, we usually "deconstruct" our chicken soup anyway!

You could make Chance's broth, or the broth as I described in my post from 2-11-08 called "Monday Night Chicken Soup,"  or any other broth you like (even store-bought).  Shred some chicken meat, either from your home-made broth, or a freshly grilled breast, or leftovers, or a store-bought roasted chicken, or wherever you can find chicken meat in your home.

Then get a large pot of water boiling and add a handful of salt, as though you're making pasta.  Throw in cut-up veggies one type at a time, such as very thinly sliced carrots, celery, corn kernels, frozen peas, broccoli, whatever else you like.  Thinly sliced veggies take only a few minutes to cook.  I err on the crunchy side to keep them fresh and interesting.  Be careful not to over-cook!!    You can fish the cooked veggies out with a small strainer.  Then cook some noodles, maybe two different kinds, like stars and orzo.  Set all the individual soup components buffet-style.   The kids may assemble their own bowls, and you can ladle some broth into their bowls one they are seated.  You may even include smaller bowls of herbs, pesto, lemon wedges or other condiment for the brave kids in the bunch.

 

By the way, I definitely can talk about honey for an hour.  Probably the long and short of it is that it is a sweetener, and all sweeteners have more or less 50 calories/tablespoon.  Some believe that the "benefits" of honey aren't enough to make it superior to other sweeteners.  Others believe honey has magical qualities such as the ability to heal cancer.  For sure, there are antioxidants in honey; darker ones are better in that area.  There are also antiseptic qualities in honey.  Manuka honey, from

the tea tree blossom (only in bloom for six weeks in New Zealand), is best known for those qualities.  Royal jelly, which is what the queen bee eats, has B vitamins and proteins and also has antibacterial qualities.  Goes without saying though, that you should avoid all these products if you're allergic to bees.