Chicken Soup with Rice

• 8 cups water
• olive oil
  
• whole chicken; skin and fat removed, cut into pieces
  
• 4 carrots, peeled, halved crosswise
• 1 celery stalks, quartered crosswise
• 1 onion, sliced
• 6 garlic cloves, chopped
• 3 bay leaves
• 5 whole peppercorns
• 2 sprigs rosemary
• 3 sprigs thyme
• 2 generous teaspoon sea salt
  

• 3/4 cup uncooked long-grain white rice

Combine enough olive oil in large pot to coat the bottom (2 T.) and the chicken. Brown chicken and remove from the pan. Add onion and garlic to the oil and stir until the onion is soft. Put chicken back in pan with water and vegetables and herbs. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until chicken is cooked through, about 35 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer chicken to platter; cool slightly. Pull chicken meat off bones in bite-size pieces; set aside. Discard bones. Strain broth; discard solids in strainer. Pour broth into heavy medium saucepan. Bring to boil. Add rice. Reduce heat to low; cover and cook until broth is absorbed and rice is tender, about 20 minutes.

Add more water if necessary and chicken pieces to same large pot. Bring to simmer. Season soup with salt and pepper. Ladle soup into bowls. Sprinkle with parsley and serve. Nice with home baked bread.

Each month is gay,
each season nice,
when eating chicken soup with rice.

Maurice Sendak is probably getting the most talk right now for Where the Wild Things Are, a wonderful book and now movie about a wild, naughty boy. But I think I love best the yummy Chicken Soup with Rice: A Book of Months.I think it was a popular book with my older son, Patrick because it was one of the few foods he would eat! Plus it is just so absurd...

In September
for a while
I will ride
A crocodile
down the
Chicken Soupy Nile.
Paddle once
Paddle twice
Paddle Chicken Soup
with rice.

Really I think we all find that "all seasons of the year are nice for eating chicken soup with rice."

I knit one of these and will make more:














It is a free pattern called Luscious Little Pumpkin Pattern. Really easy and very cute!