Chicken soup for lunch

I think I am going through this soup phase now. Have had it twice already this past week and I think it's cuz I've not managed to get it right just yet. That's until today when I made it again for lunch and I think am happy with the results. Not perfect yet but definitely edible. You're probably thinking like 'Allo, how difficult can it be to cook chicken soup?' Exactly, that was what I thought too. Like chicken soup...just throw ingredients in and let it simmer right? Wrong. It's hard when you're on Cohen meals cuz you can't use the bones to make tasty stock or use any kind of stock to help enhance the flavour.

Let me take you through my soup experience.

First attempt at chicken soup:
Totally tasteless cuz used too much water and it was taking forever to reduce cuz had THAT much water. Also, I used chicken chunks which was rock hard by the time I gave up trying to reduce the soup level. Why hard? Yes, over boiled it. So was quite a painful experience eating that!

Second attempt at chicken soup:
Used too many chilly padies - 2 to be exact. These are the ones with power and kick. That plus the amount of pepper I used, I was in tears when I ate the soup. Also, it took me a loooong time to cook the soup cuz amount of water was still not right yet and I wasn't getting the right combination of salt, pepper, garlic and ginger yet. Didn't use chicken chunks but rather diced them finely while semi-frozen (makes cutting easier) and made little round chicken balls. The chicken meat wasn't hard at all. Yay!

Today's attempt at chicken soup:
Reduced amount of chilly padi to one. I might do away with it totally the next time cuz the black pepper gives it a nice kick already. Right amount of water. Used a whole variety of mushrooms to add different flavours to the soup. Used sliced garlic and ginger. Also used the usual salt and pepper. Also added garlic powder - my current favourite right now. Use it on anything and everything. And the soup was cooked real fast. I think it took me longer to chope all the ingredients!

Next thing would be to try this with seafood. Let's see if I will manage to get it right the first time round or need at least three attempts before getting it right *laughs*