Creamy Lemon Chicken Soup

 When the weather outside is cold and windy, one of my go to meals is soup.  There's nothing like having a nice big bowl of soup while you're curled up on the couch with a good movie.  When we had all of that snow a few weeks ago, all I wanted was soup.  I wasn't able to go to the grocery store while the snow was really, really falling.  I did have a few things in the fridge, so I decided to create this soup. Here we have:

Creamy Chicken Soup with Lemon and Spinach

* 1 quart chicken stock (I use homemade)

* 1 box thingey frozen spinach (maybe 10 oz?)

* 1 1/2 lb of shredded chicken

* the grated peel and juice of 2 lemons

* 2 tbs olive oil

* 4 cloves of garlic, minced

* 3 eggs, beaten

* 1/2 onion, minced

(I had planned to use the broccolini, but then thought it might be a little weird in a soup... I had some spinach in the freezer, so I used that instead)

I started off by sauteing the onion and garlic in the olive oil.  Onions and garlic are the base of pretty much every dish I ever make, so no need to switch things up too much.

While the onions were sauteing  I set to grating the peel off my lemons.  The zest contains a whole lot of citrus oils which packs a punch of flavor.  It's amazing how a little bit of zest can really liven up a dish.

Once the lemons were zested, I used my little juicer thingey and got all the juice out.  It ended up being a pretty good amount of juice.  I always prefer freshly squeezed juice... the bottled stuff says it's fresh, but it's never quite the same.

Once the onions were softened, I added in the frozen spinach.  I didn't bother really thawing it out because the extra water just added to the liquid part of the soup.  I like my soups really brothy, so this worked perfectly for me.

When the spinach was warmed through and combined thoroughly with the onions, I added in the chicken stock.  You could use chicken broth too, but I always have homemade chicken stock in the freezer, so I use that... plus, if I make it myself (it's super easy to make), I know what goes into it so I can guarantee there's no other chemicals and junk in it.

Next, I added in the lemon zest and stirred until everything had come to a gentle boil.

While waiting for the soup to come to a boil, I whisked the eggs in a bowl and added the lemon juice to the egg mixture.  I stirred it all together and set it aside until the soup boiled.

I had shredded chicken from earlier in the week when I had roasted a whole chicken for dinner.  I just threw that into the soup and turned the temperature down to medium.

Next, it was time to add in the egg.  Now, you don't want to add the egg to the hot soup.  If you do this, the egg will scramble and you'll have little chunks in your soup.  I don't know about you, but I'm not a fan of scrambled egg soup.  To avoid this, I took a ladle of the soup and added it to the egg mixture and immediately started mixing it all together.  I added in one more ladle full of the soup into the egg and stirred a bit more, just to be safe.

Finally, I poured the egg/soup mixture into the big pot of soup and started stirring.  The egg really helps to thicken the soup without adding any of the gut irritating grains like flour or cornstarch.

Overall, this soup was pretty good!  I liked the spinach flavor, as well as the garlic and lemon blend.  I will say that I think it was a bit too lemony for me.  Next time, I might try to cut down the lemons to just one lemon (zest and juice).  If it isn't lemony enough, I can always add in more later.  This was a yummy and unique soup.  You could probably add in more veggies if you wanted to... carrots, celery, etc... it's worth a shot!