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Homemade chicken noodle soup
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Easy Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

This easy recipe for homemade chicken noodle soup can easily be prepared almost as quickly as the packaged stuff, and is actually made with real chicken.

Homemade chicken noodle soup

Ingredients for an Easy Chicken Noodle Soup

You will need:

  • Chicken broth (homemade or from a can)
  • Chicken breasts
  • Butter
  • Onion
  • Celery
  • Egg noodles
  • Sliced carrots
  • Basil, oregano, salt and pepper

How to Make Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

Before you do anything, you need to fry up roughly half a pound of chicken breast. Your chicken should be thoroughly cooked before using it for this soup recipe.

Chop up your celery and onion. You will need about a half cup of each. Add more or use less depending on your opinion of sort-of-crunchy things.

Bring a large pot to medium heat and add a tablespoon or two of butter. Cook your celery and onion in the butter for between 5 and 10 minutes, or until they begin to soften.

Once the celery and onion begin to soften you can pour in your chicken broth. You should add about six to eight cups of broth. More broth would just give you more soup but unless you balance out the broth with more soup-stuff then it probably isn’t worth it.

Now you can add your (already cooked and cut) chicken, about a cup and a half of egg noodles, some chopped carrots, and your spices. You should use a teaspoon or less of both oregano and basil, and as with anything else, you can add salt and pepper to taste.

Once you have everything combined in the pot, bring the soup to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, reduce the heat and let your chicken noodle soup simmer for about twenty minutes.

Tips for Making Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

  • Basil, oregano, salt and pepper are just recommendations. This is an area where you can easily experiment or just use something you like better.
  • Homemade chicken broth is an obviously better choice than the canned stuff but for the purposes of this simple recipe, the canned stuff is probably more reasonable.
  • As with most soups and stews, letting this chicken noodle soup simmer longer will result in an overall better soup. Beyond twenty minutes you will see diminishing returns, though.
Beef Stew with a Guinness
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How to Make a Homemade Beef Stew With Beer

Beer fills out the flavor of a stew. Unless you want to risk overspicing, the easiest way to flavor a beef stew is adding a can of beer. Make sure you don’t skimp on the other ingredients, though. If you just want beer, just have a beer.

For a beef stew recipe without beer, check out this recipe for a traditional beef stew.
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Pasta with garlic butter sauce, served with shrimp and asparagus
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Butter Garlic Sauce for Pasta

Butter garlic sauce is a very simple pasta sauce. It is a great alternative for when you’re sick of your tomato sauces and when alfredo sauce is going to be too rich.

This recipe is actually very similar to the one for garlic butter (no surprise, right?) but the preparation is slightly modified.

Pasta with garlic butter sauce, served with shrimp and asparagus

Butter Garlic Sauce Ingredients

You will need:

  • Butter
  • Garlic
  • Basil
  • Oregano

Once again, feel free to use additional spices or even throw in some lemon juice. Or not. Sometimes simple is better.

How to Make Butter Garlic Sauce

Bring a small saucepan to medium heat, and begin melting a third of a cup of butter.

Chop or crush two or three garlic cloves while you’re waiting for the butter to melt. Once the butter melts, add your garlic and saute for three to five minutes.

Optional: Add a teaspoon of basil and two teaspoons of oregano.  Fresh or dried both work fine.

Pour over pasta. You’re done.

Tips for Using Garlic Butter Sauce

  • Never pre-cook this sauce. It’s mostly butter. Once it dries it’s pretty much just weird and terrible.
  • Be careful not to burn the butter. You’d be surprised how bad garlic and butter can taste when you burn them.
  • Serve over fresh homemade pasta and top with garlic shrimp or lemon garlic broccoli. Because those are all delicious things.
  • Or you can just serve it with asparagus. That’s good too.
Baked Salmon with lemon
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How to Cook a Simple Oven Baked Salmon

Every basic baked salmon recipe has lemon in it. This one is no exception. This is a very simple recipe for cooking oven baked salmon.

Baked Salmon with lemon

Ingredients for Oven Baked Salmon

  • Two garlic cloves
  • Basil
  • Parsley
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Lemon juice
  • Olive Oil
  • Two large salmon fillets

You will also need some aluminum foil.

Oven Baked Salmon Preparation

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit or 190 degrees Celsius.

Finely chop your garlic and mix it with at least six tablespoons of olive oil, a teaspoon of salt, pepper, and basil.  Add about a tablespoon of parsley and anywhere between one and three tablespoons of lemon juice.

Put your fillets onto a large piece of aluminum foil and pour in the mixture of oil, garlic, and spices.

You should bake them until they can easily flake when pressed with a fork.  Properly baking salmon usually takes between thirty five and forty five minutes.

Tips for Making Oven Baked Salmon

  • You can put the foiled up salmon fillets on a baking sheet, but to avoid making a mess of your oven I’d recommend using a casserole dish.
  • You can use lime instead of lemon. It’s a lighter citrus flavor and a good alternative. (Be sure you don’t waste any lime juice.)