Chicken soup

I had some of my homemade chicken soup today and yesterday in hopes of helping this awful cold/sinus infection. I really do not want to go to the doctors. I'm hoping it will start going away soon. But, when you feel like someone just whacked you 30 times in the face with a baseball bat, it's probably a sure sign you've got a sinus infection. We shall see. So back to the chicken soup. Every time I make a roast chicken (which is probably 4 times a year) I save all the extra meat and the carcass, yes it's a carcass. It's dead. And this is what i do:

Throw the carcass with some of the meat still on the bones into a huge pot of water.
Add some seasonings: salt, pepper, garlic powder, sometimes chopped onion if I remember, bay leaf, parsley, sometimes lots of random stuff like thyme, savory, whatever I feel at the moment.
Then I let it boil for few/several hours to make a nice chicken stock or broth (I still don't get the difference between a stock and broth-remind me to ask Emeril)
Occasionally I will throw in a bouillon cube.

Then after you get that chickeny taste I add diced potatoes & carrots, chopped celery, peas, green beans, or if I don't have lots of fresh veggies I'll use a bag of frozen mixed veggies. Whatever you fancy. You can see there's not a lot of measuring to this, not a real recipe. It varies every time. Then throw in the leftover chicken that you've now chopped or diced or shredded or whatever.

*Add softer veggies later, like peas, beans, etc. Carrots and potatoes need the longest cooking time. Then I adjust seasonings to taste, throw in some pasta. I prefer Ancini de pepe or little pasta stars.

I usually freeze a lot, in meal size plasticware, to thaw out one at a time for a meal here and there. It's really simple, there's not a lot to it, and you don't have to do it all at once. I put it on the stove, let it simmer, come back a few hours later, add stuff, come back later add more, etc. I suppose you could find a 'real' recipe, but soups good no matter what and I like that it varies here and there. I'll have to find my minestrone soup recipe-that was THE BEST and everyone loved it.

Now, here's hoping that chicken soup is working my cold out of my head...