Baba Gina's Chicken Soup Equipment: Need an 8 quart pot. (If you have a 16 quart pot you can double the recipe). I also use 3 colanders, 3 bowls, 1 wide mouthed pitcher, 2 strainers, and jars (see step 5 below). Ingredients: 6 lb. roasting chicken ("oven-stuffer") 3 quarts water 1 Tbspn salt pinch sugar 1 bayleaf 8 allspice berries vegetables as follows (Note: exact amounts/sizes aren't important, but generous amounts of vegetables add flavor) 2 parsnips (or 1 large) parsley (nice size bunch) dill (nice size bunch) 1 leek 1 whole onion 2 carrots, peeled ( can add another ) 4 celery stalks/tops ( can add another ) 1 whole potato, peeled 1/2 green pepper (optional) 1. Wash chicken thoroughly, trim off excess fat and red "organy" stuff from inside. Cut chicken in 1/2s or 1/4s, place in water, cover pot, bring to a boil. 2. Skim off scum and bubbles from the top until water looks pretty clean, saving skimmed water in a bowl to eyeball the amount skimmed off. If you've skimmed off a substantial amount of water, you can replace it with clean water before continuing to next step. Discard the skimmed off water. 3. Uncover and reduce the heat. Add remaining ingredients. Return to the boil and simmer until checken is tender, at least 3 hours. If necessary, use cooking fork to move the chicken and vegetables around once in a while so that chicken at the very top gets a turn to be underneath, so everything cooks evenly. 4. When done, turn off heat and let cool in order to handle. (I let it sit overnight on stove). 5. Strain soup, reserve the meat and the vegetables. What I do is set out 3 bowls with colanders on them, and the pitcher with strainer. - I remove meat from the soup pot with tongs, put meat in 1 colander and let the soup drain from it into the bowl below. (Not much drains off but every drop is "precious". - You may want to keep the bones with the meat, but I save only the meat, and put the bones and the vegetables I don't want into another colander (for "garbage") and let the drops of soup from there drain into the bowl below. - I put the vegetables we keep into the 3rd colander, catching drops of soup in the bowl below. I save the potato, carrot, parsnip, and whole onion. - I ladle out (&/or pour out) soup through the strainer into the pitcher. From there I strain again into jars. - After the meat, vegetables, and "garbage" have sat a while over the colanders, I gently squeeze out any remaining soup. I save the meat and vegetables, discard the garbage, and strain the salvaged soup, adding it to the jars. 6. IMPORTANT NOTE: If you will be freezing the soup do not fill jars to the top, leave an inch or 2 for expansion!!! 7. Place in refrigerator. After jelled, remove fat from top of jars. Then soup is ready to eat or to freeze. 8. The boiled chicken is soft and tasty to eat plain, or can make chicken salad or chicken creole. If desired, can be frozen in portions for later cooking. 9. The boiled onion is good to eat. 10. The vegetables can be quickly cubed into a salad, adding chopped onion, (optional chopped cucumber), and a dressing of: mix mayo, lemon juice, (optional prepared mustard), salt, pepper. Can also add chopped boiled chicken to make a quick chicken/vegetable salad.