Turkey soup recipe

Here is what I did with my leftover turkey. It turned out great, but I did make a few changes that I think really added to it.. See them at the bottom.

This is from www.foodnetwork.com...

Turkey Soup with Egg Noodles and Vegetables

Ingredients
2 teaspoons olive or vegetable oil
2 leeks, cleaned and chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 stalk celery, chopped
3 to 4 cups leftover cooked turkey, shredded or cubed
2 to 3 bay leaves
2 teaspoons dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
8 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
6 ounces uncooked egg noodles
1 cup frozen green peas
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
Directions
Heat oil in a large stock pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add leeks, carrots, garlic, and celery and saute 4 minutes, until soft. Add turkey, bay leaves, thyme, salt, and black pepper and stir to mix well. Add chicken broth and bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, partially cover and simmer 10 minutes.

Return mixture to a boil and add egg noodles. Cook 10 minutes, until egg noodles are just tender. Stir in peas and cook until peas are just heated through, about 1 minute.

Remove from heat, discard bay leaves and stir in parsley.

Now for my hints: Let this soup simmer for about 2 hours so that the flavors really get into the soup. The leeks really added to it. If you don't know how to cut up leeks, you chop about 1/2 inch off the white root/bottom part and about 6 inches of the green part, and then use the rest of it chopped up. The leeks are one reason I chose this recipe over others. When cooked, leeks give things a great flavor. I also added more celery, carrots and garlic than the recipe called for.

I used 10 cups of reduced-sodium chicken broth, because 8 made it too thick for me. I used fresh thyme instead of dried. I read where you might want to cut the amount of thyme in half if you use dried, because it can overpower the rest of the soup, but you can use 2 tsps. of chopped fresh thyme and it's great. Make sure you only use the thyme leaves and not the twig. I also added fresh cilantro to this recipe. It really enhanced the flavor. I didn't add it or the fresh thyme until the noodles were cooked though. I used medium egg noodles instead of the wide. The wide seem to soak up all the soup when I use them.

Enjoy!!