Chicken Noodle Soup

Never mind how I went on a 7 month hiatus. We got settled into our hometown where my husband opened up his Chiropractic practice aaaand I found out I'm pregnant in the middle of all of that, plus we moved a couple of times. It's been a pretty crazy 7 months, but we're all doing great and just happy happy happy! So here I am, and I wanted to make sure my comeback was with something good, and I tell ya what...it really is.

I am not the biggest fan of homemade chicken noodle soups. I'm just not. Most of the time they get really ..... I don't know the word. I feel like I'm eating puffy odd textured noodles with bland boxed broth.
But this soup is LITERALLY (not figuratively) the best chicken noodle soup in the world. The noodles I use I feel like are the best, but they do take about 25 minutes to cook. So take that into account if you want to use the same noodles as I. I feel bad about this picture. It really does not do it justice. I took it after the first time I made the soup and the chicken wasn't up to my level and it just kind of looks sad. Now, after many times making it and turning it into a masterpiece it looks pretty different than what you see here. I'm making a mental note to change the pic soon!

What you will need:

•  6 chicken tenderloins (or maybe 3-4 chicken breasts)
• 1 C water
• 2 sticks butter
• 1 T garlic salt
• 1 T Salt 
• 5 T pepper (no, that is not a typo)
• 3 T onion powder, divided (not a typo either)
• Carrots (whatever kind you like in your soup. The recipe says a bag of them and you can wait for them to get soft but I don't have time for that so I got a can of carrots that were already soft HA)
• One yellow onion, chopped/minced/diced (however whatever)
• Celery (or no celery if you're like me)
• (2) 49 oz. cans of chicken broth (I had boxes, so I ended up using 2 1/2 boxes)
• Country Pasta-Homemade style egg pasta (clear bag with a red label. At Walmart it sits on the bottom shelf underneath all of the boxed pastas)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees
• Place chicken breasts in a baking dish 
• Add 1/4 C water 
• Coat each breast or tender with 1 T of onion powder (really really coat them. REALLY coat them, don't be scared)
• Sprinkle the 1 T of garlic powder over the chicken as well
• Cut up your butter and place it all randomly in the dish. I put some butter on each piece of chicken and the rest just anywhere.
• Cook chicken for about 30 minutes or until they reach 165 degrees
• Let the chicken cool
• While the chicken cools, you can chop up your vegetables 
• Saute your onions with some butter until they are nice a fragrant (or saute them until they are tender)
• Add the rest of the veggies and give it a good mix with 1 T of pepper
• Pour the chicken broth into the pot and bring to a boil
• Add in the rest of the onion powder and the rest of the pepper
• Add in the noodles (they will take about 25 minutes to cook)
• Turn temperature to low
• When your chicken is done, remove the breasts or tenders to a cutting board and whisk the butter/broth left in the pan together
• Dump that butter broth right into the pot with everything else
• With your remaining stick of butter and 1 T onion powder, just melt the butter in the microwave and whisk in the onion powder. Add to broth as well
• Cut up chicken into chunks or shred and add to the pot
• When the noodles are done, the soup is done!