René of the Day // 9.27.11 // Spicy Ginger Chicken Noodle Soup

I've vowed myself to a "Soup Challenge." Forget du jour. I'm hoping that each week through the chilly season (perhaps just autumn, we'll see if I make it through winter), to make a different soup recipe. I love the idea because they're generally inexpensive to make, healthy, fun to cook, taste great as leftovers and last for the week - plus they can be frozen for thawing and enjoying later if I get sick of it after a few days. Plus, I love using my big red Le Creuset stock pot! My other goal with is to share the websites from which I collect a lot of my favorite recipes. I'm often asked for them after posting on Facebook or Twitter and I'd love to share my resources.

My first soup of the season came from the Serious Eats weekly e-newsletter. I've been in a habit of unsubscribing from a lot of emails lately but this is one that I never delete. Each week it features around 10 delicious recipes - from unique (Dr. Pepper ribs) to classic, usually gourmet and never overly difficult or expensive ingredients. When I saw the recipe for Spicy Ginger Chicken Noodle soup it caught my eye because I love making Asain-inspired dishes at home. I keep soy sauce, sriracha, mirin, honey, ginger, sesame seeds and other staples on hand so it's usually a quick trip for produce and I'm good to go. One thing I've started to do for certain recipes like soups is buy the little bags of Tyson cooked chicken chunks - I know my mother would scold me for wasting money and being too lazy to cook and diced the chicken, but it saves at least 30 minutes.

This soup turned out to be so delicious and lasted Saturday through Thursday - a winner! The only thing I'll omit next time are the sugar snap peas - whenever I cook with them, I get annoyed. You have to peel them or the stringy thingy on the back of the bean shreds and the little knob on the end is hard and it makes them a pain to chew. So I picked them all out.

Get the recipe here. And check back for another soup each week!