Don’t want to spend time making your own chicken stock?  This is a simple and fast way to make a hearty chicken soup using supermarket shortcuts.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped into small dice
• 4 celery ribs, chopped into small dice
• 3 carrots, chopped into small dice
• 8-ounce package of fresh, sliced mushrooms
• 1 tsp each, salt, pepper, dry thyme
• 1 small plain deli chicken, meat pulled off the bones and chopped into bite-size pieces
• 48-ounce can chicken broth
• 1/4 pound dry spaghetti, broken into thirds (2-ounces of pastina works great also)

Direction:

1. Over medium-high heat, in a large, heavy saucepan, heat oil for 30 seconds.  Reduce heat to medium, and add the onion, celery and carrots and cook for 5 minutes, until vegetables begin to soften, stirring frequently.
2. Add the mushrooms and the seasonings and cook for an additional 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Add the chicken pieces to the vegetable mixture and cook for 2 minutes.  Add the broth, lower the heat to medium-low and simmer for 30 minutes.
4. Add the pasta to the soup and cook for 15 minutes.

Makes 6 servings.

Notes:  In step 3, you could replace the deli chicken with boneless and skinless chicken breasts that you’d poach in the broth for 30 minutes.  You’d then simply remove the cooked chicken from the soup and chop into bite-size piece that you’d return to the pot.  A neat variation to this soup is to add a 28-ounce can of chopped tomatoes at Step 3.