You're very welcome to it, Kaz, I just hope it helps you some. Seems like a lot of ingredients and faffing around, but it makes a huge saucepan and the basic broth freezes really well.
Take one big old raw chicken (about 4-5lbs) and put it in a Very Large Saucepan with a lot of roughly chopped vegetables. Don't worry about scraping or cutting the skin off these vegetables, they're just for flavouring the initial broth. Use a big leek, couple of onions, good bit of celery, a few carrots halved lengthways, a parsnip... basically whatever veg you have knocking around to add flavour- put them in with the chicken. Add a handful of whole peppercorns, some bay leaves, bunch of fresh parsley, and a spoon of vegetable bouillon powder or stock granules if you've any handy. Then add enough boiling water to cover the beast of a bird and all the veggies.
Cover the saucepan, stick it on the hob and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and let it simmer for about an hour until the chicken's cooked through. Then strain out the chicken, put it on a plate and leave it until it's cool enough to handle. If you just want plain clear chicken broth, strain the liquid from the now pulpy vegetables and drink it down - goodness in a bowl! But you can use the broth as the basis for a really hearty soup. You can either go for chicken and vegetable broth or as an alternative you could have something my granny used to make - chicken noodle broth with meatballs. Both are delish!
For chicken and vegetable broth: Strain the liquid, disgard the veggie pulp, then put the liquid back into the saucepan, bring to a simmer and add a good cup of soup mix/pearl barley or lentils, amount depends on how thick you like it. Let it simmer for about half an hour, then add a big pile of chopped fresh soup veg - plenty of celery, parsley, leek, carrots. Then pick the slightly cooled chicken off the bones and add this meat to the soup. Let it simmer until the veggies are cooked (about 40 minutes) and it'll really put some life into you - especially if you have it poured over a mini hillock of mashed spuds! Just as a note - it's even tastier the second day when it's sat for a while and thickened, and the flavours have matured.
For chicken noodle and meatball soup: Strain the liquid, disgard veggie pulp, then put the liquid on to simmer in the saucepan, adding some small beef or lamb meatballs - you can add them raw, they'll cook and hold their shape okay, or you can brown them off first in a pan. Add a generous portion of chopped carrots and leeks, and your cooked chicken meat. Let it all simmer for approximately 20 minutes, then add your dried noodles. I think that the little rings of egg vermicelli are best, but any type you like would work, really - the finer the better, though. Then just give the soup enough simmering time for the noodles to cook through, and serve it up with a buttered crusty roll. Very tasty!
Hope that doesn't all sound too chaotic! If you're ill you deserve someone to make you up a good soup, though. It can really help.