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Creamy Roasted Chicken and Vegetable Soup

This soup is amazing! I haven't made soup in  a couple of weeks now, which to me is ages, so I thought I'd knock something up today. It's cold out and I can't be bothered venturing anywhere exciting so cooking will be my main focus this weekend. Cooking and listening to Frank Ocean, perfect for a chilled weekend.

Since I'm in desperate need of going shopping I don't have much veg in the fridge. I fact I don't have any veg in the fridge but plenty in the freezer. So root vegetable soup, which is what I usually make, was out the window. I had chicken or fish in the freezer and in that type of situation chicken will ALWAYS win with me. So I made this.


It's delicious and pretty easy to make. It takes a while but there isn't much effort required, just waiting. But since it's the weekend surely that's the perfect type of recipe? The type where you can throw everything in, do something else and come back when its done? I think so.

Today is another fasting day since yesterday ended in me eating chicken! It's not my fault though, the cold weather makes me crave fat and chicken was the best choice I could make. Today was going well until this soup was made. I only ate half the bowl, I promise. Then I promptly put the rest away and decided to distract myself by posting this now.

The Ingredients are simple:

4 & 1/4 pieces of Chicken
Lemon Juice
1 extra large or 2 medium tablespoons Butter
2 Chicken Stock Cubes
1 teaspoon Dried Chives
1 & 1/2 Chili Peppers
1 Clove Garlic
2 large hand full roughly chopped Butternut Squash
1 Litre Milk (I used Alpro Almond Milk)
1 & 2/3 cup Water
2 cups Sweetcorn
3/4 cup Peas
3 Medium Broccoli Florets
Salt
Pepper

Since I only had a vague idea I might cook today I hadn't removed the chicken from the freezer. I'm sure there are millions of reasons it's important to defrost chicken thoroughly before cooking it. I don't care about any of them. I've done this all my life and I'm still alive and in pretty good health. Feel free to defrost first though.



I simply rinsed them in a bowl of lukewarm water and cleaned/rinsed them with lemon juice.


Once done, season lightly with salt and pepper and set the chicken aside. In a small bowl place your butter


along with your two stock cubes. Smash this together with the back of your spoon.



Next add your teaspoon of chives and a couple of shakes of salt and pepper. The stock cubes contain salt so you don't need too much.


Once this is all mixed together to a paste, cover your pieces of chicken thoroughly. I used all of the mix which looks like a lot of butter. We want the chicken moist though and any butter that is left in the tray once it's cooked will be used to brown the garlic later.


Place the chicken in the oven at around 180 for approximately 45 minutes. This may be slightly shorter or longer. You should be checking regularly to baste the chicken anyway so if it burns or is under cooked, blame yourself!

While the chicken is roasting you have two choices: You can either get on with the prep for the next part, so you're all prepared for when it's done, or you can look at pictures of food online like I did. Either way you have around 45 minutes to kill.  Once the chicken is out of the oven set it aside to cool or start pulling the meat of the bone while it's still hot. One way means getting burnt, the other way means you're a wuss. Again, your choice.


This was nice and evenly browned and there was plenty of juice left in the pan for the next part along with some thicker parts which were mainly stock at the front of the pan.


While that's cooling grab your garlic. Mine was pretty large so I only used one clove.


Roughly chop and set aside. Grab your chili peppers. I was lucky enough to be given a chili pepper plant by my mother for Christmas so I grabbed a few, but didn't end up using them all.


I couldn't be bothered chopping these so simply used my scissors to snip them into the pan.

Grab the chicken and pull the meat off the bone. Throw the bone away but keep the meat AND skin in a separate bowl.


Now grab that tray of, what should be, just juices and stock from the chicken.


Tip all of this into your pan along with the chopped garlic, chopped chili and a dash of salt and pepper. It may be necessary to scrape the tray as you really do want everything.


Heat on medium. While these are browning, grab your butternut squash. These were frozen chunks that I had chopped and stored previously and I used roughly half the bag. Add them to the pan along with the chicken skin and begin to brown.



Once they have started to brown (they will smell truly delicious at this stage) you want to add your milk. I used around 2/3 of a carton of almond milk as that's what I had open. You will need quite a bit as there is only a small amount of water added later, so don't be afraid to add the whole carton.





Once all the Milk is added return the pan to the heat and bring to the boil. The colour should change from white to a light caramel. Keep an eye in case it dries out/sticks/boils over but don't be tempted to add any more milk or liquids now. This should be more than enough to soften the butternut squash. Keep pricking them with a fork to check, you'll be taking them of the heat as soon as they are soft enough for the fork to go through. This took around 10 to 15 minutes for me.

Add EVERYTHING from the pan to a blender and whizz on the highest setting until smooth and creamy. Once you're happy there are no more lumps, tip the contents back into the pan and place on a low heat.


Grab your chicken


and veg


and add them all to the pan along with your 1 & 2/3 cup of water and salt and pepper to taste. Remember, you shouldn't need much salt due to the stock cubes, so go easy.


Mix this and leave on medium heat until the veg is soft and cooked. I used all of the water but how much you use will depend on how thick you like your soup. More water, thinner soup, less water, thicker soup. Decide.

Once the veg is soft all you really need to do is serve. This soup was absolutely amazing. I left the pieces of chicken  large and added more sweetcorn than the other two vegetables as a matter of preference, but this would be just as nice with other veg or maybe even with completely blended chicken. 




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