Bosnian Chicken Soup

This is pretty similar to Jennifer's chicken broth, but with the ingredients added back in and a few different seasonings. So you can check out that recipe for a more detailed description/other ideas

Ingredients:

1-2 large sweet onions, sliced

A few sticks each of the following 3 ingredients, cut into 3-4 inch pieces

-Celery 

-Parsnip (yeah, who knew? But apparently its readily available at the store)

-Carrots

Chicken pieces (leg quarters are the cheapest! three or four should be fine)

A large pot of water

Parsley

VEGETA seasoning (The most amazing all-seasoning ever) - a few tablespoons? 

3-4 cloves garlic, peeled  (not diced)

salt

Pasta of your choice*

The first order of business is - according to Mirna's amazing-Bosnian-cook mom is to burn some onion. Not really burn, but slice it into rings and cook it on the eye of your stove on both sides. Mine is electric, but my guess is gas would be even better. It is fine if you burn it because it wont be eaten anyway.

Next, bring a pot of water to a boil and turn it down to medium high. (the more water, the less potent the broth, but there is a lot of room for error. About 1 and a half gallons?)

Add the chicken, veggies, and seasoning (Jennifer argued for waiting till you  make your soup to season, but Mirna's mom said that making the broth with vegeta is important) and put on the lid of your pot, leaving a crack for steam.

*The pasta gives you some wiggle room with the amount of broth; if it is a little weak or you have a ton of it, add the pasta after cleaning the broth and it will soak up a lot of the moisture. If you wish you had more, boil it separately, strain, and add to the almost finished soup.

Let this simmer for about an hour. Two or three is probably fine, but not all day. Made that mistake. it was kind of nasty.

At this point you have three things in your pot: your broth, the veggies and meat that you want to save for the soup, and some other stuff/pieces you don't want to save. Separate these out using whatever combination of a strainer, a slotted spoon, or whatever you have around.

Once you have a clean broth, put it back on the stove and add back in the veggies of your choice (the blackened onion is not so good). 

Pull all the meat off the bone and add back into the soup along with whatever version of pasta you are trying.

Let it simmer for a while if you like a more dense broth and softer veggies. If not, heat and serve! 

Note: Soup is always better after sitting a while... the flavors are exchanged between ingredients.

Season to taste.