Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

This recipe is so basic... so perfect for a January evening when it's 18 degrees outside.  If you know how to make chicken noodle soup from scratch already, you're golden... just use rice pasta instead of regular.  If you don't know how to make it, read on for a crash course in the art of homemade goodness.

For this recipe, you will need:
- 1 roasted chicken (I like to grab mine from the deli sections of grocery stores... Schnucks makes an herb-roasted chicken that's hot and ready to walk out the door -- perfect for a late evening of teaching when there's just not enough time to cook the thing yourself)
- half an onion, sliced and quartered
- roughly 1 c chopped celery
- roughly 2 c chopped carrots (I like to use baby carrots and just cut them in half)
- half a bag of frozen peas
- 3/4 - 1 lb brown rice pasta (or other gluten-free pasta)

Debone chicken... however much you'll think you'll need.  Last time I made this, I basically used all the dark meat -- legs, thighs, wings, and back -- and a little bit of breast meat.  Debone the rest and freeze.  You can also keep (freeze) the carcass to use for future chicken soups (just boil with remaining meat until bare; remove before adding pasta).  Put meat in large stewpot and fill mostly with water.  Add onion, celery, salt, and pepper and bring to a boil.  This is your stock.  After stock has boiled, add pasta and cook til tender in boiling stock (you can also save time by cooking the pasta separately and then adding later after carrots).  Add carrots and cook for 10 mins.  Add peas and cook til everything is well done, soup is boiled down, and your house smells amazing (roughly 45 mins - 1 hr).  Add more salt and pepper if necessary.  Serve with hot chocolate and love :)