Garden Soup

I just thought this recipe might be of interest to some of you. We like a roast chicken every now and again like everyone else. As of yet I have not gone down the road of rearing chickens for the table. This is partly due to just not having gotten round to it and partly because George sometimes retrieves the laying hens (Puts them off laying something terrible but otherwise doesn’t seem to trouble them too much). God knows what he would do to little chicks.
As we don’t rear our own we try to buy organic or at least free range birds. However as everyone knows they are bloody expensive full stop and especially so when compared with the 4.99 bird we see in the supermarkets. I refuse to buy this kind of meat so we find ways to make the organic bird go further. This is typically what we do. Roast chicken dinner is first on the list. I then strip the rest of the meat from the bird and we will have chicken pasta, risotto or chicken and broccoli bake. Finally I make a stock with the carcass and make this soup.
The stock is easy, just break up the carcass and add some carrots and onions along with some bay and any other herbs you have. Barely cover it with water and simmer for 2 or 3 hours. Top up the water if needed and that’s it.All you do then is strain the stock. I add whatever vegetables happen to be in season at the time. This can include spuds, carrots, peas, beans, kale, and anything else that takes your fancy. The only trick is to make sure to cut everything into pieces the same size. So if using peas for example, make sure that you chop the spuds and carrots into pea size chunks so everything cooks at the same time. The other thing to note is that I didn’t season with salt during the stock making process. It can easily turn out too salty, so you are much better off seasoning when the soup is ready