Chicken Noodle Soup II

Well, it's that time of year again. The time of year when John says "Will you make me some chicken noodle soup sometime?", which translates to "I'm turning around and going back to the grocery store so we can get the ingredients for you to make chicken noodle soup ASAP." My life is tough.

I usually go with the more Italian herbs. This time, though, I wanted a little bit of a lighter taste, so I went with French herbs and lemongrass. I live life on the edge.

So here's the recipe for the most recent batch of Chicken Noodle Soup. It should be noted that I'm BS-ing 80% of this recipe...and really it's just whatever I grab and however much of it I grab. My middle name is "Risk-taker".

Hope you enjoy!

Ingredients:

3 1/2 boxes of Swanson's Organic Chicken Stock (I believe this is the top rated America's Test Kitchen stock?)
6 c. water
1 rotisserie chicken, meat removed
4 celery stalks, halved and sliced
3 carrots, peeled, quartered, and sliced
1/2 yellow onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
3 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 tbsp. olive oil
2 c. dry egg noodles (or a mixture of whatever sort of noddles you like...we used the "grab bag" selection at John's house, which included various sizes of penne and egg
Salt
Pepper
3 tbsp of herb, including tarragon, dills, lavender, thyme, parsley
1 bay leaf
1 stalk of lemongrass

Directions:

1) Bring chicken stock and water to a boil with the bay leaf and lemon grass stalk. Add noodles and cook until al dente. Turn off. Add chicken and herbs, salt and pepper and simmer on low.

2) Meanwhile, sautee over medium heat celery, carrots, onion, and garlic in butter and olive oil until very, very soft.

3) Add veggies and simmer on low for  at least 30 minutes.

This soup is always best the next day!