Mom’s Home Made Rosol - Polish Chicken Soup

I haven’t made this recipe in centuries. In fact, I can’t remember when I last made it. It’s my mom’s Polish chicken soup - better known as Rosol, but sounds different than it is spelled. So I dug out the recipe I had written down as my mother was saying it all those years ago. When we went to the grocery store this week we picked up the soup bones and the parsley flakes. I couldn’t find vegetable flakes anywhere so we ended up getting chopped up celery, onions and carrots. We initially thought we would use elbow macaroni, but I wanted to stay true to the recipe and went back later in the week to pick up egg noodles. So we started with three quarts of water and added the chicken and soup bones, boiled them and simmered it for an hour. Then we added the whole onion, salt, parsley flakes, and bay leaves and left it to simmer for three hours. My mom always had to make bland meals because my dad had stomach ulcers - so spicy and peppery flavors were never used. It didn’t matter because the aroma in the house took me back decades. Towards the end we added in the noodles and it looked so good! My mom didn’t make the soup very much because it was always so hot in the Florida weather. So it was a real treat to not only make it, but smell it, and eat it heartily. We may end up adding other things to it the next time - spinach or other vegetables. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to make! It was really comfort food and it reminded me of my heritage - and my mom.