Cheryl's Chicken Soup

My mom is a pretty amazing cook, and not too long ago, she was kind enough to share her chicken soup recipe with me. It's simple, it's delicious, it creates enough soup to last me a week, and, did I mention it's delicious?

Ingredients:
- 2 to 4 chicken hind quarters bone-in (You can use any part of the chicken with bones, but I like dark meat and I like a lot of pieces of chicken in my soup, so I use 3-4 hind quarters of thighs and legs. Chicken can be frozen or defrosted.)
- 1 medium onion cut in half
- 8 whole cloves of garlic
- 2-3 carrots peeled and cut into large chunks
- 2-3 stalks of celery cut into large chunks
- fresh dill
- 4 bay leaves
- Seasonings: Bouillon powder, salt, pepper, and garlic salt taste

Directions:
- In a large soup pot, put in chicken. I have a large pasta pot with the strainer insert that I use to easily separate the chicken and veggies from the broth.

 - Add carrots and celery.

- Add onion, garlic, dill, and bay leaves.

- Add seasoning. You'll need to add a lot of salt and I think freshly ground pepper adds a lot of good flavor. But don't add too too much, you can always taste it when it's ready and add more salt later.
- Fill pot with water to cover all the ingredients.
- Place on stove over high heat and bring to a boil.
- Lower heat to medium/low and then leave on the stove for 2 hours.
- Now, here's where you can choose your own soup adventure:
                 - I don't like carrots or cooked celery, so I strain all ingredients out of the broth, then peel the chicken off of the bones and add that back into the soup. I throw away everything else.
                 - I will sometimes buy the "No Yolk" whole wheat egg noodles to add to the broth that cooks while I'm getting all the chicken off the bones for yummy Chicken Noodle Soup.
                 - Sometimes I use some of the broth in my rice cooker to make some rice, and then add a couple spoonfuls of rice to my bowl of soup.
                 - Try shredding zucchini and/or sweet potato in a food processor, and then adding that to the soup for a hearty vegetable soup. Just be sure to cook it for a little bit until the sweet potatoes are soft.
                 - This is also the recipe my mom uses to cook Matzah Balls in.....YUM!!
                 - Or....do all of the above! Keep the veggies, add the noodles, add some rice (noodles AND rice might be overkill), add the zucchini, sweet potato, and Matzah Balls, and enjoy some super delicious soup!

*TIP: If you leave the soup in the fridge overnight, you will notice a bunch of fat coagulated on the top. Use a ladle to skim it off.....it's pretty gross.