Gwyneth Love

GP's Chicken Soup with Kale and Carrots

For those of you who don't have Gwyneth Paltrow's two cookbooks I am sharing her Chicken Soup.  I highly recommend both of her cookbooks.  The recipes are great.
I copied her recipe exactly.  She just adds chicken, kale, and carrots, but obviously you could add whatever you like to the soup.

• 1 whole 3-4 lb chicken
• 1 celery stalk roughly stalked
• 1 large leek, thoroughly washed and roughly chopped (including the dark green parts)
• 1 large carrot, peeled and roughly chopped, plus 
• 2 more carrots, peeled and diced
• 1 yellow onion quartered
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 leafy sprigs of thyme
• 1/2 tsp whole black peppercorns
• 2 tsp coarse sea salt
• 1 bunch of kale, leaves stripped off the stems in bite-sized pieces
• freshly ground black pepper

Combine the chicken, celery, leek, 1 roughy chopped carrot, onion, bay leaf, thyme, peppercorns and salt in a large soup pot and cover with cold water (it will take about 10 cups).  Bring the soup to a boil over high heat, then lower the heat and simmer soup for 2 hours.  Strain the stock into a clean soup pot and discard the cooked vegetables.  Pull the white meat off the chicken and cut into a rough dice.  Reserve the dark meat for another use (or you can add it to the soup if you like).  Add the diced chicken breast, the 2 diced carrots, and the kale to the soup and simmer for an additional 20 minutes.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.