I simply love this time of year.  Harvest is starting to come in, we are nearing the end of the hot days and looking into Indian Summer.  The farm stands are all stocked and Farmer’s Markets are booming!  I had the occasion to visit a local Farmer’s Market today and I feel like I struck gold with the beautiful vegetables that made their way to my kitchen..

I love going to a Farmer’s Market with nothing in mind at all.  I let the freshness of the produce sweep me into a frenzy of creativity.  Today, I left the house with a fresh chicken stock cooling on the stove, so I did have a little bit of direction… cooked chicken and wonderful stock.  When I returned home, I found that I had some gorgeous native carrots some almost red in color, others purple!  I got some cool crisp green beans and a few other things that will be heading onto my dinner plate later this week.

As for today, both my son and my daughter each have a little case of the sniffles.  So, I thought it appropriate to come up with a sort of chicken soup.  They are both big fans of chicken, carrots and green beans and with a few more ingredients to include cannelloni beans for a little extra protein, yummy egg noodles for their velvety heartiness along with some onions, celery and some fresh and dried herbs and we were good to go.  Let me show you what I did…

Aren’t they beautiful? Orange, purple and a deep orangey red… all of them are super fresh and super sweet.

A fresh basket of green beans, yum.

Look how gorgeous these are.

Saute in a little touch of olive oil.

Add in a diced onion.

Chop up some celery.

Add your celery into the saute.

Cut a few sprigs of thyme.

Add your stock to the pot along with a few of these sprigs of thyme.

Here are my farm fresh green beans.

Chop them up… I do a pretty small chip for my kids, you can certainly chop to whatever size suits you.

These egg noodles are considered a nice smooth starch.

Add in a pinch of salt, crack some fresh black pepper and add in your Herbs de Provence.

Add in your white beans.

Then cover.

I like to chop and then shred the chicken a bit.

Allow to simmer for a few minutes so all the flavors can really marry.

Recipe for Farmer’s Market Chicken & White Bean Soup:

(serves 6-8)

1 cooked chicken breast

2 native carrots, chopped

2 stalks of celery, chopped

1 medium onion, diced

1/2 cup green beans, chopped

3 cups dry extra wide egg noodles

1 can white beans, drained and rinsed                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       8 cups prepared chicken stock

.1/2 tsp Herbs de Provence

3-4 sprigs of fresh thyme (optional)

salt and pepper to taste

olive oil for sauteing

Directions:

Saute onions, carrots and celery in olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat.  Add in a pinch of kosher salt.  Once tender, add in chicken stock.  Bring to a boil over high heat.  Then add in green beans, beans, egg noodles, salt, pepper, thyme and Herbs de Provence, cover and reduce to med/low heat.  After about 10 minutes add in the chicken.  Continue to cook until noodles are tender and chicken is heated through. Taste for salt and pepper.