A few weeks ago Guild Wars 2 introduced a pretty large feature pack. There were a lot of quality of life changes and some major changes to the way traits work. The updates that really stood out to me were the addition of the wardrobe and dyes being account-wide rather than character based. I was really excited the first day of the release and logged in to see how many unidentified dyes I would be getting. After logging into each character I ended up with 190 unidentified dyes. I’m not sure what to do with them but they are currently sitting on my guardian. With the introduction of the wardrobe system I can now skin any focus to be The Minstrel. Even better, my legendary is now account bound! Now all my characters (if they can use a focus of course) can have little notes floating around as they adventure around.
With summer just around the corner I wave goodbye to winter with a soup. If you’ve been keeping up with this blog you’ll know I enjoy soup all year round. I’ve finally become motivated enough to learn how to make a chicken broth. With that first lesson comes a great classic, chicken noodle soup. One thing that is a bit different with this recipe compared to a normal chicken noodle soup is that we are going to roast the chicken. I think the roasting adds a layer of flavor to the soup that takes it up to the next level. This is another long recipe but the work required is pretty minimal. A lot of the time the broth will just be cooking and you have to occasional take a look at it, nothing too complex. This is a long one so let’s dive into it!
Required Equipment: Oven safe pot, spoon, cutting board, knife
Servings: 5-6 bowls
Ingredients:
Chicken Broth:
– whole chicken (about 3 ½ lbs)
– salt
– pepper
– 1 ½ onion, quartered
– 3 celery ribs, cut into large pieces
– 4 cloves garlic
– parsley
– 1 tbsp tomato paste
– 1 tsp sugar
– 2 quarts water
Soup:
– 1 tbsp butter
– 1 ½ tbsp chicken fat (from the broth)
– 2 carrots, diced
– ½ onion, diced
– 3 celery ribs, diced
– pinch dried thyme
– chicken broth
– 4.5 oz dry egg noodles
– cooked chicken breast (from the roast chicken)
– salt
-pepper
Pre-heat your oven to 400°F. Salt and pepper the whole chicken. In a oven safe pot (I recently purchased a French oven and it was all I ever dreamed of) place the chicken, onion, celery and garlic. Roast for an hour and fifteen minutes. Place the pot on the stove and remove the chicken. 
Allow the chicken to cool until you can safely touch it. Remove the chicken breast and place that in the refrigerator for later. 
Break down the chicken by removing the limbs and splitting the chest cavity. Place it back in the pot. In a small bowl combine the tomato paste, sugar and about 2 tbsp of water. 
Turn your burner onto medium-high heat. Add the tomato paste to the pot. Pour the 2 quarts of water into the pot and finally add the bunch of parsley. 
Bring the pot to a boil and then immediately stop it by reducing the heat to low. This high boil will pull some flavors out but if you keep it at the boil it will pull the too much flavor out and leave the broth bland. Leave the broth at a slight bubbling state for four hours. During the process skim the fat and foam off, but make sure to save a little bit for the soup. Also make sure to add water to it because it will be reducing. I like to check about every half hour so I would recommend that. 
After the broth has cooked for the required time remove the chicken. At this point, it will taste like nothing because all of the flavor has been pulled out. Strain the broth and set it aside. Place another pot over medium-high heat and add the butter. 
Add the veggies and allow them to them to get semisoft, about eight minutes. Add some salt, thyme and chicken fat. Cook for another five minutes so the vegetables soften. 
Add the broth. Turn the heat up to high and bring it to a boil. Taste the broth and season with salt and pepper to your liking. 
Add the noodles (do not add more than recommended because it will absorb too much of the broth) and cook for five minutes. Finally add the chicken and cook for another five minutes. Serve immediately. 