So it finally happened – I got sick. I thought I had dodged the illness bullet but Wednesday night it hit me. I got through work barely on Thursday but finally gave in.  Hopefully one of these days I can inherit some good Jewish matzo ball soup recipes from my in-laws  but for now I had to wing it. I was really feeling crummy so I wanted something easy and yet heathful. HEB was having a sale on chicken thighs so I said why not. Plus I got to use my homemade chicken stock!

Ingredients:

1 pkg of boneless, skinless chicken thighs
3-4 carrots peeled and sliced
1 small carton of button mushrooms
1 medium onion sliced very thin
1-2 garlic cloves minced
4-5 c chicken stock
2 bay leaves
2-3 c cooked pasta (I used ditalini but cavatelli or stars or other shapes work too)

In a large stock pot, heat up 2T of olive oil and saute the onion until the onion starts to soften – NOT brown.

No browning here

Once the onions are ready add the chicken stock, carrots, garlic and mushrooms and bring to a simmer. While the stock is heating up, take the chicken out of the package and using kitchen sheers cut as much of the fat off of the chicken thighs as possible. The thighs I bought were very very fatty so it took me the entire time the stock was heating to cut off as much fat as I could.

Add the chicken to the stock along with the bay leaves and cover and let it simmer for 30 minutes. While the chicken is cooking – cook the pasta according to the package and drain. After the 30 minutes are up use tongs and pull the chicken onto a cutting board and cut it into bite sized pieces. Discard the bay leaves before serving. Put the chicken back and pour in the pasta and stir and serve!

mmmm

It was exactly what I needed. Cost wise it was easy – $10 exactly and the entire pot I made had5 servings so $2 each.  Calorie wise I did great too! Each serving has 347 calories, 7.8g of fat and 34g of protein – I feel better already.