Feel-Good Chicken and Rice Soup

Chicken and Rice Soup

1 rotisserie chicken
enough water to fill a pot
1 or 2 chicken bouillon cubes
1 onion, chopped
celery, chopped
carrots, chopped
minced garlic (to taste)
salt (to taste)
Baby Bam (to taste)
dry Italian seasonings (to taste)
1 bay leaf (optional)
crushed red pepper (to taste)
parsley (to taste)
rice (cooked)

Take a rotisserie chicken and put the whole thing (bones, drippings, everything) in a pot. Fill pot with water until chicken is covered; put on the stove and bring to a boil. Cook at a low boil for about an hour or so. Then put a strainer in a big bowl and pour contents of pot through the strainer. Pour the broth from the bowl back into the pot and put the chicken aside to cool a little bit. Put one or two bouillon cubes into the broth depending on how much flavor you want. Add the chopped onions, celery, carrots, and garlic. Put in all of the seasonings and let that simmer all together while you sort through the chicken and bones and just take out the good stuff, which then goes in the pot. At the very end, add however much you want of the cooked rice ( I cooked my rice in a rice cooker).

NOTE: This is a variation of a recipe in Emiril's "There's a Chef in my Family!" called Feel-Good Chicken and Rice Soup. So, for those of you who prefer specific measurements for your ingredients would probably want to refer to that recipe. It's basically all the same ingredients, I just have my own methods for preparing this soup.

Also, this soup is awesome for kids because the rice is easy to eat (easier than noodles) and the vegetables are soft and tasty. Lastly, I find that this is very convenient dinner to make when you serve a rotisserie dinner for chicken by itself, then use the leftovers to make this soup. Make sure that there is enough chicken left on the chicken, if not, you may have to add more chicken.