Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

There is nothing like the wholesome goodness of homemade chicken noodle soup. This recipe was adapted from Simply Recipes. It starts with homemade chicken stock and ends with lots of noodle-y goodness!

Ingredients

About 3 1/2 pounds bone-in chicken breast and thighs
5 carrots (2 carrots scrubbed clean, but not peeled and cut into 2-inch chunks for the stock; 3 carrots peeled and cut into 1/4-inch rounds for the soup)
5 ribs of celery (2 ribs cut into 2-inch pieces for the stock; 3 ribs cut into 1/4-inch pieces for the soup, including celery tops)
1 1/2 onions ( 1 onion quartered for the stock; 1/2 an onion chopped and sauted in butter for the soup)
5 cloves garlic, cut in half
2 - 3 sprigs fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 bunch parsley
Salt
5 whole peppercorns
8 - 12 ounces egg noodles (depending on how noodle-y you want it!)
Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Remove skin from chicken and discard. Cut away as much of the fat as possible and discard. Cut as much of the raw meat off of the bones as is possible and reserve in refrigerator. The meat will be needed towards the end of the soup preparation.

Place the bones in a stock pot. Cover with water. Bring to a full rolling boil. Boil for 3 minutes. After 3 minutes, remove from heat, drain off water, rinse the bones and rinse out the pot.

Return the parboiled bones to the clean pot. Add 2 carrots and 2 ribs of celery (as described above). Add quarterly onion, garlic, 1/2 of the parsley, thyme and peppercorns.
Cover 3 quarts of water (or more if needed to cover the ingredients by an inch or two).  Bring to a low simmer. Allow to simmer (the stock should be barely bubbling), partially covered, for 1.5 hours.

Allow to partially cool. Drain the solids and bones from the stock by poring through a sieved strainer.
Reserve the stock.  If desired, you can remove remaining meat from the bones and return to the stock.
Rinse out the stock pot and return the reserved stock to the pot.

Add taste to salt (approximately 2 teaspoon salt for each quart of stock).

Add sliced carrots and celery. Bring to a simmer.
Saute chopped 1/2 onion in butter and add to stock.
Cut up raw reserved chicken into bite sized pieces. Add to simmering stock.
Bring stock to a low boil. Add noodles and cook until chicken is cooked through and noodles are cooked (about 10 minutes)

Add remaining chopped parsley. Add freshly ground pepper, salt and dried thyme to tate.