Sarah's Awesome Chicken Soup

1 Whole chicken, cooked and deboned*
2 cups Magic Mineral Broth** or other vegetable stock
5 carrots, cut into thirds
1 onion, chopped coarsly
4 stalks celery, cut into thirds
3 shiitake mushrooms, soaked and sliced. Retain water.
2 small pieces of kombu
1-16 oz. package of noodles
Sea salt, black and red pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Boil 2 cups water and soak shiitake mushrooms in a glass jar for 30 minutes
2. In a small or medium stock pot, combine chicken and broth.
3. Chop up carrots, onions, celery, and shiitake mushrooms and add to the pot. Add mushroom water.
4. Wash kombu, spread out flat, and cut into slices. Add to pot, along with salt and pepper.
5. Add enough water to cover all vegetables twice.
6. Bring to a boil. Turn down heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
7. Add noodles and cook for another 20 minutes.

* Preferably organically fed, pasture-raised chicken. I cooked mine in my crockpot.
** Recipe here.

Notes and helpful hints:
- Kombu will have a white powder coating. It should look like this. Just rinse it off. It will also expand considerably when cooked. Kombu provides lots of vitamins and minerals.

Dry kombu

Washed kombu

- I prefer less salt and more pepper. If you are making this soup to battle a cold, add red pepper until it is almost too hot for taste. The capsaicin and salicylates in red pepper can help with headaches, body aches, and inflamed sinuses. Also, it always makes my nose run and clears my sinuses, sick or not.