Hi Food Tube, Kerryann here. I'm going to show you one of my favorite recipes from my
book, it's my mum's chicken and vegetable soup. It's a real comforting recipe, my mum
used to make it for me when I was ill, when I was a kid. This soup usually serves about
8 people. It's delicious, it's healthy, it's really light, it's almost like a big cuddle
in a bowl. So here I've got a whole chicken, this is a free range chicken but by all means
buy the best welfare that you can afford. I'm going to cut of these little ankle bits, you'll
see I'm using scissors, I think it's easier but if you feel more comfortable with a knife
then use a knife. And then I'm going to take off the parson's nose and then these extra
little loose bits of skin. Depending on your chicken you can have a little extra bit of
fat in the broth and it makes it a little bit oily and no one likes oily soup. The wing
tips, just this little bit because there's not really anything in them. I'm going to
put this into a large heavy pot, so this is about a medium sized chicken, probably about
a kilo and a half. I'm going to wash my hands, raw chicken can carry bacteria. I'm going
to turn my board over and then I need 3 nice medium sized carrots, I'm going to peel these
with a speed peeler, one of the easiest peelers there is to use. You can use these for making
salads, shaving cheese, shaving chocolate. Carrots are full of vitamin A and vitamin
A is really good for your eyes, so eat your carrots guys. I've got the skins so I'm just
going to drop them in with the chicken and then I'm going to top this up with some water
so we've got just enough water to cover the chicken. I've got some other veges I'm going
to put into the soup later so I'm going to use the trimmings from those now to flavour
my stock a little bit more. A medium to large leek, take the first layer off of that, it's
a bit gritty. I'm not even going to bother chopping them, I'm just going to rip it up
and chuck it in really. Right now I've got a nice sized onion, so I'm just going to take
the ends off of that. Chuck them in as well, even the hairy bit, don't worry about it,
it's getting strained. Tops and the bottoms of the carrots. Right so, everything's
in here doing its thing. Bring it to the boil and once it's boiling I'm going to turn it
right down and simmer it for about an hour until the chicken's cooked through. So I'll
see you in a bit. Right so this chicken has been boiling away happily for about an hour
and 10 minutes and I'm going to take it out. Be careful when you're doing this guys because
you can get splashed so we want to drain off all that beautiful stock that we've made and
put the chicken on a plate. This looks ready and then we're going to put that to 1 side
to cool down for later. Now in here you'll see I've still got all my little bits and
bobs, a nice large bowl here and then I'm going to strain this beautiful stock into this
bowl, it will all come together in the end and you'll know exactly what's going on. And
then I'm going to put my stock also to one side. My pan is back on the low heat, I'm
going to put a tablespoon of olive oil and while that's warming up I'm going to chop
my vegetables. 1 medium leek, I'm just going to take the end off. It doesn't have to be
fancy, this is just the base of our soup. Another great thing about this soup that each
serving counts for 1 of your 5 a day. We want these to soften up nicely and now I'm going
to chop some garlic. I've got 4 cloves of garlic here that have been peeled. In we go
with the garlic. At this point I want to chuck in a generous sprig of fresh thyme. Thyme
is one of my if not favorite herb and thyme and chicken are great friends. I've got an
onion we took the ends off earlier so we've got nice little chunks of onion and in with
those. The same with the carrots so I'm just going to chop these in half, flat side down,
down the length. Just into nice little bite sized chunks. It is a good idea to have them
all roughly the same kind of size. Doesn't have to be precise. But that's only for the
fact that they cook at the same time. So in with the lovely carrots, soften those up just
for a couple of minutes. So these have been softening up for about 5 minutes, come and
have a look in here my friends. That just looks amazing already, I love the colours
and it smells great. I'm going to add half of a butternut squash, just been peeled and
cut up into chunks and 500g of potatoes that have been scrubbed and not peeled. 500g of
potatoes is probably about 3 small to medium potatoes, now I'm going to crumble in 2 organic
chicken stock cubes, we're going to use our beautiful stock we made when we were boiling
our chicken. So in we go straight with the stock, be careful not to splash yourself because
it is still quite hot. So just give it a stir just to make sure that the stock cubes have
dissolved. Once this comes to the boil I'm going to turn down the heat and leave it to
simmer for about 15-20 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Right, so my potatoes
are about 5 minutes away from being cooked through. I'm going to pick out the thyme sprig,
pretty much all of the thyme has come off of it so it's done its work. I've started
shredding my chicken so I'm just going to keep on with that. We don't want the skin
so I'm going to take that off. And then straight in with our lovely picked chicken just to
warm it through. Now I'm going to give that another stir. Right so while the chicken's
in here warming through, I'm going to add the last ingredient which is 200g of baby
spinach, this has been washed already, plop it on the top. Just enough for it to wilt
down. It's full of iron. My son and I, we both like spicy food, my daughter, not so
much. So instead of putting the chilli in the soup I'm just going to chop them up and
sprinkle on top of mine, on top of his, hers will be fine. I'm not going to bother taking
seeds out or anything like that. I'm going to chop it all and what I don't use I'm going
to chuck in a freezer bag, put it in a freezer and use it at a later date. Okay so we're
just going to give it a stir, the spinach has wilted, I'm going to give it one quick
taste. Okay it needs a little pinch of salt and a little pinch of pepper to bring it all
up. So I'm going to get a nice bowl and get all of that goodness. A little bit of chopped
chilli. Look how pretty that looks, it just livens it up and brings a lot of colour. That
takes me right back, I'm a kid on the sofa, wrapped up in a duvet feeling all sorry for
myself because I feel rough and then my mum gives me that and it just makes everything
all better. If you want to have a look at my book you want to get your own copy, just
click on it, that will take you to a link to buy it. There are loads more great recipes
in there. Head on over to my channel as well, subscribe to that it is free. Subscribe to
Food Tube if you want, that's free too but most importantly my friends enjoy yourself
and I'll see you next time. Happy cooking!