Leslie, if all fails... and you don't hear from Vickey, why don't you just thicken it some with a flour and cornstarch mix that you stirred smooth in some water, or milk?

Moni

Lesli, Moni is correct.
Just mix up a slurry of flour and cold water, or corn starch and cold water and slowly stir into broth. Bring combined mixture to bubble to cook off 'floury' taste, and then taste for seasoning. If it's a really large roaster, you can to it more than once.

Cream

Okay and thanks so much for responding so quickly, Moni and Cream. I'm probably over thinking at this point.

Leslie/KS

Mine is soup and noodles, but you could easily make it a "gravy (heck my brother-in-law calls it chicken and gravy). Just like posted, above cook to gravy.

Soup in a roaster:

2-3 Stewing hens (okay depending on the size, but if you want over potatoes, I like lots of chicken)
1-2 onions
celery
baby carrots (regular will do, but I'm lazy and don't like cutting them)
bay leaf or two
parsley

Better than boullion chicken Flavor (or Chicken Boullion)
Herb Ox NO SALT Chicken Boullion

I like to wrap the chicken in a cheese cloth (one per cheese cloth) along with the bayleaf. Throw in the roaster along with everything else. (If you like onions, chop, if you don't throw onion in whole literally, easier to fish out in the morning).
Cook overnight at around 300. Do not put the boullions in until the next day.

In the morning, pull out the onions if you put them in whole, pull out the chicken "packet" in cheese cloth. Let cool. Pull chicken off bones (this method is nice because you end up with very few bones and "stuff" in the souop, and don't have to strain the broth). Shred the chicken or chunk the chicken, depending how you like your chicken, dump back into the broth. Add your "better than boullion" and taste broth. If it isn't soup yet, start adding the herb-ox NO SALT....I use the NO SALT because if you put in more regular bullion or even a reduced sodium, it is just WAY to salty. Chickens today just need the added flavoring of boullions, I don't know why. When your soup is VERY RICH in flavor you can start on your noodles if your making them, or make into the gravy. Remember that since you'll be making into something with flour, you will need to have extra flavor or it will lose it with the flour in it.

Hope this helps!

Vickey-MN

(If you don't make noodles, I'd do the Flour slurry to make the gravy first, then if it still needs thickening, make the corn starch slurry...but that's just because I think it's harder to get the flour flaver out than the corn starch)

I'll check through out the day if I can if you have more questions!!

Thank you so much, Vickey. I wish I were making it right now and getting it out of my system...ha! My only hang up is doing it in a roaster (well, and getting it thickened). I decided on using a roaster because there will be 30-33 of us and I'll need my big pot for the potatoes.
My kids hope to be here by 9:00 Saturday morning and we'll open presents. The rest of my family will start showing up by 10:00 probably and I hope we're eating by noon. Some of us are on CST and some on MST, so you never know who's showing up when! My DS and his family will be going to a funeral that day, too. Their very, very good friends who live here lost their baby boy on Dec. 24th. He was born with defects and not expected to live much more than 30 days, which is what happened.
Saturday will be a lot of fun, once I get over the preparations and get the food on the table. The other "womenfolk" will be a lot of help when they get here, but the KT family is the most help because they're always here!!
Thanks again,
Leslie/KS

Frazoo...Don't worry, It is seriously so easy to do it this way. If the directions sound too easy, trust me it is because it is. The "messy" part is the deboning of the chicken, but we found that by wrapping it in cheese cloth, even that is "less" messy than when it's free floating in the broth. We're having a fund raiser in Jan for a friend and making my chicken soup and noodles. The person co-ordinating it is acting just like you worrying about the time and work, and I keep telling her the same thing...don't worry, it really is easy to put together. By starting it the day before (put it together tonight before you go to bed), if you get up durring the night to pee, stir it. When you wake up tomorrow morning your house will smell SOOOOOOO good! Wehn making this into gravy, just remember, it's a LOT, so use a LOT of the slurry mixture. Turn roaster up to HIGH, and when it's really boiling, add the flour/water mixture (You may even want to do that BEFORE you add the chicken back in). Get that nice and thick. I can't wait to hear about the compliments you get on this! Just watch, you'll end up making this year after year!!

Vickey-MN