Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup

I love the approach of Winter for one reason and one reason alone......warming, comforting, calorie-enriched food. There are so many beautiful and delicious things to be enjoyed at this time of year, pies, casseroles, chocolate cake, crumbles, bakes, chocolate cake, puddings, soups, and did I mention chocolate cake?
   One of my children's favourite dishes has to be chicken noodle soup. They don't get it very often however as I find it bland, dull, absolutely boring - and if I don't like it we don't eat it. But then I thought of a way in which I would positively LOVE to eat chicken noodle soup.........by adding lashings of cream of course!

Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup

Firstly I am going to encourage, cajole and plead with you to make your own stock. This will add so much flavour to your soup. Please, please, please give it a go, it tastes yummy and makes your house smell divine. I will begrudgingly acknowledge that some Campbells Real Stock may do the job and you will still end up with some fairly nice soup. If you use crumbled stock cubes, however, I will never forgive you.

Stock;

You will need either a BBQ chicken for this recipe or even better leftover roast chook that you've made yourself.
Strip off most of the meat from your chicken and put it aside to use later.
In a large saucepan put your chicken carcass and cover it with water. Add an onion, several cloves of garlic, 2 carrots (peeled), 2 sticks of celery, bay leaves, peppercorns, and a couple of cloves. Season really well. Put this on the stove top and let it gently bubble away for several hours.
   Once it has been cooking for quite sometime remove the chicken, bay leaves and cloves. Strain the stock and return it to the saucepan, keeping it on low heat. The vegetables you have sitting in your strainer place in a blender and whiz them up until they are smooth.

Soup;

In a large saucepan melt a fair amount of butter, probably about 80 grams. Add enough flour to make a roux. Now gently add the hot stock a bit at a time, incorporating with a whisk so there are no lumps. Keep adding the stock and whisking it in until you feel you have enough for a good pot-full of soup. Add the reserved chicken pieces from when you made the stock and the pureed veges from your blender (if you didn't make your own stock - a slap on the wrist for you - but you will need two cups of cooked chicken and some finely chopped veg to add at this stage) Now add two cups of cream (Yum!) and season well. Let this simmer for about 20minutes. Now taste, hopefully it will be beautiful by this stage. Add more seasoning if you feel you need it and then put in some egg noodles and let them cook through. Serve with parsley sprinkled on top and I like a little Parmesan on mine. Wait for accolades and praise to heaped on you by the whole family as they inhale your sensational soup!