Feeds- 6-8 peeps

Ingredients

• 2 each 2-3 pound chickens
• 1 bunch celery
• 2 white sweet onions/ peeled and quartered
• 8 carrots
• 1 bunch curly parsley
• 1 head chopped fennel
• 1 cup peeled garlic
• 1# dried pasta- your choice
• 1# sliced smoked bacon
• 1# fresh shucked green peas
• 2 cans sweet corn- or 5 ears shucked sweet corn
• 2 cans cooked white beans

Method

• cut chicken into quarters and rinse with cold water
• place the ends of the celery and carrots, the heart of the fennel and all of the white onions into a pot along with the chicken and the parsley.
• bring the mixture to a boil and simmer for 30-40 minutes.

Remove the chicken and cool.

• once the chicken is cool enough, not to burn your hands- remove all the meat from the bones. Throw the bones and skin in the garbage and shred the chicken.
• remove all of the other vegetable pieces. (Now you have a base to your soup)
• add the chopped carrots, celery, and fennel to the broth and simmer for 10 minutes.
• add the sweet peas, sweet corn and white beans. (*note- if you are using canned corn and beans, rinse them off with cold water in a strainer)…

Bring the mixture to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes.

• in a separate sauté pan- render sliced and chopped bacon until crispy – discard half the fat and then add the crisp bacon and fat to the soup.
• in a separate pot of salted boiling water, cook the small pasta pieces, strain an then add to the soup. (*note- if you are not eating all of the soup in 1 seating, just add a small amount of cooked pasta to the soup and save the remaining pasta in a separate bowl for the next time you serve the soup. Otherwise, the pasta will continue to grow, get mushy and soak up all of your soup.)
• Season with sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper and add the shredded chicken.
• Serve with roasted olive oil soaked sourdough bread and a good bottle of dry white wine!

Enjoy!