(Skinny!) Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup -- A Bowl for Milestone Weeks and Cold Nights

Five years and one week on the blog. The milestone week was actually two weeks ago but I was too busy making peas and cornbread and reflecting on the year to note the specific date. Five years of writing. Two hundred and fifty weeks. The longest sustained creative project of my life, which is saying something for a man whose other sustained projects include thirty-six years of physical labor and twenty-nine years of marriage, both of which required similar commitments of time and sweat but less typing.

The blog has become something I didn't plan. It started as a recipe repository — Betty's recipes, preserved, documented, saved from the oral tradition that was dying with her generation. It became a chronicle — a family story told through food, week by week, year by year, the slow unfolding of lives lived in a kitchen that connects Evarts to Lexington to Afghanistan to the VA to a barbecue restaurant to wherever comes next. The recipes are the text. The lives are the subtext. The subtext is what keeps four thousand people coming back every week.

A publisher contacted me. A small press in Lexington that does regional books. They want to talk about the cookbook. "What Betty Made." The title I thought of three years ago, sitting in the living room with Connie and a bourbon (ginger ale now, but the title came during the bourbon era). They want to talk. Not commit — talk. But talking is the first step toward making, and making a book is what I've been circling for three years, the way you circle a swimming hole before you jump — testing the edge, checking the depth, building the nerve.

I haven't told Betty yet. I want to wait until there's something concrete — a contract, a plan, a page count. I don't want to get her hopes up with a "maybe." Betty doesn't deal in maybes. Betty deals in yes and no and "pass the cornbread." When I tell her, I want it to be a yes.

This week: comfort food for cold weather. Loaded potato soup. The recipe from year two, updated with Clay's addition of smoked paprika on top, which he puts on everything now and which works here — the smoky heat against the creamy potato and the melted cheese is a small revolution, a Clay-shaped adjustment to a Craig-shaped recipe that was itself an adjustment to a Betty-shaped tradition. The recipe stack: Betty's potato soup ΓåÆ Craig's loaded version ΓåÆ Clay's smoked paprika finish. Three generations of adjustment. The recipe grows by addition, not replacement. Nothing is lost. Everything is gained.

A milestone week calls for milestone food — something that wraps around you the way five years of writing can’t quite do on its own. Potato soup was on the original plan, but the fridge had chicken and the pantry had noodles, and sometimes the recipe you need is the one that’s already waiting for you. This lighter creamy chicken noodle soup has become its own kind of tradition in this kitchen: the bowl you make when the news is too big to sit with quietly, when you need something warm and real while you wait for a maybe to turn into a yes.

(Skinny!) Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 45 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 2 cups wide egg noodles, uncooked
• 3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into coins
• 3 stalks celery, sliced
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup plain nonfat Greek yogurt
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• 1 bay leaf

Instructions

1. Cook the chicken. Place chicken breasts in a large pot and cover with the chicken broth. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 15 minutes, or until cooked through. Remove chicken and set aside to cool slightly; reserve the broth in the pot.
2. Shred the chicken. Once the chicken is cool enough to handle, shred it into bite-sized pieces using two forks. Set aside.
3. Saute the vegetables. In the same pot with the reserved broth, add olive oil over medium heat. Add onion, carrots, and celery and cook for 5–6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onion is softened. Add garlic and cook one minute more.
4. Add broth and noodles. Return any additional broth as needed to reach 6 cups total. Add the bay leaf, thyme, parsley, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, then stir in the egg noodles. Cook for 7–8 minutes, until noodles are just tender.
5. Make the creamy base. In a small bowl, whisk together the Greek yogurt and flour until smooth. Reduce pot heat to low. Slowly ladle about 1/2 cup of the hot broth into the yogurt mixture while whisking constantly to temper it, then stir the tempered mixture back into the pot.
6. Finish the soup. Return the shredded chicken to the pot. Stir well and heat over low for 3–4 minutes until warmed through and slightly thickened. Do not boil after adding the yogurt. Remove the bay leaf, taste for seasoning, and adjust salt and pepper as needed.
7. Serve. Ladle into bowls and serve hot. A sprinkle of smoked paprika on top doesn’t hurt — Clay would approve.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 240 | Protein: 28g | Fat: 5g | Carbs: 20g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 520mg