Portuguese Chicken Soup

I make a lousy food blogger because I have no pictures to share with you of this yummy soup I made last night -- but trust me that it looked and smelled as wonderful as it tasted. 

I picked up the latest copy of the Food Network magazine because I wanted to check out the chili recipe on the cover.  That turned out not to interest me, but a Portuguese Chicken Soup recipe by Emeril Lagasse did.  I didn't follow the recipe exactly (I rarely do) but I kept the essence and everyone enjoyed the soup.

The original recipe called for a whole chicken -- but nobody in my house will eat dark meat -- so I substituted bone-in chicken breasts.   The recipe's yield was 6 servings, which may have just fed my family, but I wanted to share with my parents and I wanted leftovers . . . so again I veered away from the recipe.  The recipe also called for mint, but I didn't have any and didn't want to make a trip to the store for mint. Enough talk of what I didn't do, here's what I did.

Ingredients
3 bone-in chicken breasts
3 stalks celery
1 large onion
3 crushed garlic cloves
liberal sprinkle of red pepper flakes
salt
pepper
zest from one lemon (from our backyard!)
juice from 2 lemons (again, our yard!)

rice
juice from another lemon

Directions
Cover chicken breasts with about 2 extra inches of water in large pot.  Coarsely chop celery and onion.  Add spices to taste.  Add lemon zest and lemon juice.  Bring to boil and then turn to simmer for about 45 minutes to an hour.

Remove chicken breasts and set aside to cool a bit. Strain broth and discard vegetables.  Return broth to pot and bring to boil.  Add rice (the recipe called for 1/4 cup, which didn't seem like enough to me.  So I threw in a cup, which was too much, but it was what was left in the bag I had in the cupboard.  Luckily, I also had chicken broth in the cupboard, so I just added more broth later and it all worked out fine.  I should have done 1/2 cup)  Simmer for 20 minutes, or until rice is tender.

Remove chicken skin and shred chicken.  Add to broth.  Add juice from another lemon.   Simmer for 5 - 10 minutes.  Enjoy!!

I really enjoyed the zing the lemon juice gave the soup, and the soup received a thumbs up from all 5 members of my family.   If I would have had any carrots, I would have added them in as well. 

And, now that I've read through this post, I also realize I'm not a food blogger not just because I forget to take pictures . . . but also it's hard to put down all the steps in a recipe when I just wing it.  Oh, well . . . if nothing else . .. throw some lemon juice in the next chicken soup you make.  It's yummy!