Portuguese Chicken Soup

Ingredients
3 bone-in chicken breasts
3 stalks celery
1 large onion
3 crushed garlic cloves
liberal sprinkle of red pepper flakes
salt
pepper
zest from one lemon (from our backyard!)
juice from 2 lemons (again, our yard!)

rice
juice from another lemon

Directions
Cover chicken breasts with about 2 extra inches of water in large pot.  Coarsely chop celery and onion.  Add spices to taste.  Add lemon zest and lemon juice.  Bring to boil and then turn to simmer for about 45 minutes to an hour.

Remove chicken breasts and set aside to cool a bit. Strain broth and discard vegetables.  Return broth to pot and bring to boil.  Add rice (the recipe called for 1/4 cup, which didn't seem like enough to me.  So I threw in a cup, which was too much, but it was what was left in the bag I had in the cupboard.  Luckily, I also had chicken broth in the cupboard, so I just added more broth later and it all worked out fine.  I should have done 1/2 cup)  Simmer for 20 minutes, or until rice is tender.

Remove chicken skin and shred chicken.  Add to broth.  Add juice from another lemon.   Simmer for 5 - 10 minutes.  Enjoy!!

I really enjoyed the zing the lemon juice gave the soup, and the soup received a thumbs up from all 5 members of my family.   If I would have had any carrots, I would have added them in as well.  The original recipe called for mint, but I didn't have any.