Crock Pot Chicken Noodle Soup

Today is a beautiful day here in Central Ohio, snowing, blowing and just what you'd want from a winter wonderland!  Love it.....I've had a variety of projects today from marketing to real estate, and so I thought I'd make something my kids love and that could be cooking away all day until I was ready to assemble it. I call it my Crock Pot Chicken Noodle Soup. It is perfect for a day like today! I plan to serve it with a spinach salad with blue cheese cheese dressing!

Crock Pot Chicken Noodle Soup

1 Cut-up Chicken (entire chicken white & dark parts)
8 stalks of celery
2 carrots
1 red bell pepper, cut into chunks
1 yellow onion, cut into chunks
10 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 lemon
koster salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste
(I use a large 7 quart crock pot)

Place all vegetables in the crock pot, place frozen chicken pieces on top of vegetables, squeeze the juice of the lemon over the chicken then salt and pepper to taste.  Toss cut lemon in the pot too.
Cook on high until chicken is cooked through, about 5-6 hours, or on low for 8-9 hours.

Meanwhile, boil a pot of water, salt generously and cook wide egg noodles for about 2 minutes less than directions recommend.  Keep 2 C of pasta water.

Remove the chicken from the crock pot and let cook so you can pull the chicken from the bone, discarding the skin and bones.  Drain the stock through a colander into a large bowl and discard the vegetables. Set aside.

Shred chicken and place back into crock pot. Add cooked noodles, 6 C of cold water and 2 C of pasta water.  Skim some of fat from top of stock, then pour into crock pot leaving the cloudy part to discard.

Turn crock pot to high until soup is hot...serve.

After skimming fat layer from top, pour carefully and leave cloudy stock in bottom to discard, some in the soup is no big deal, so don't get too fussy....