When I say “literally,” I mean I’ve eaten this soup at least once a day since making it last weekend. Why?

1. There’s a lot of it.
2. My wife, who doesn’t like soup, is out of town.
3. It’s the perfect winter meal.
4. I’m lazy.

Also, the recipe is pretty simple. The only difficult part is figuring out when the chicken is cooked through. I usually have to fish a piece out and cut into it to make sure the meat has cooked to the bone. By the way, I strongly recommend that you do not use skinless chicken as it gets rubbery almost as soon as the water gets hot.

As you can tell from the picture, I overdid it with the pastina (little pasta). This is not an uncommon occurrence. I always find that when I look at the amount of soup I’ve made, and then look at the little box (or bag) of pastina, it seems reasonable to use practically the whole thing.

Wrong. The pastina (in this case, orzo) will continue to soak up moisture from the soup, sometimes to the point of total absorption. It’ll still taste good, it just won’t be soup. In other words…

No soup for you!