Summery hot and sour soup

Hello, lovelies!
I took a break from posting on Friday since I didn't have many culinary ideas the last week or so.  But after my friend's wedding yesterday and having a (tasty) steak dinner at the reception, Peter and I were planning on a lighter meal tonight.  So, inspired by a cartoon we saw this morning, I endeavored to make a soup we've been experimenting with a bit recently.
Yes, it's hot, but it's a pretty light soup and incorporates some Asian tastes that we love.  It's basically a loose interpretation of hot-and-sour soup, with a lot more veggies than the versions typically served in restaurants.  Suggestions for changes to the recipe, as always, follow.

Chicken Hot and Sour Soup
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1/2 medium vidalia onion, chopped
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1.5 tsp ground ginger
1/2 Tbsp. ground cumin
Salt and pepper to taste

2 cups chicken stock
2 cups water
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1 Tbsp soy sauce

1/2 cup carrots, chopped
1/2 cup red and green bell pepper, chopped
1 jalapeno or serrano pepper, chopped
1/3 cup mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup frozen peas
2 oz. dry pasta such as angel hair or spaghetti

Chop the chicken into bite-size pieces, and dice the onion.  Heat olive oil in a 2-quart pot over medium-high heat, and add onion and chicken.  Season liberally with the ginger and cumin, and sprinkle evenly with salt and pepper (easy on the salt, though; we have chicken stock and soy sauce being added later on!).  Saute mixture over medium-high heat until chicken is browned and the bottom of the pan has a decent amount of fond (the brown stuff at the bottom of a pan after you've browned meat). 
At this point, add the chicken stock, water, vinegar and soy sauce.  Bring to a boil, scraping the bottom of the pan to deglaze it.  Add carrots and mushrooms, and lower heat to medium. 

After roughly 2-3 minutes, add the peas, peppers and pasta to the soup (Ha!  The 3 p's!).  I took a picture below of a handy way to measure 2 ounces of pasta: when you grip it in your hand, the diameter of the pasta bundle should be roughly that of a quarter.  The angle of this picture makes it look a bit larger, but it isn't, I assure you!

Simmer over medium heat until the pasta is done, serve, and enjoy!  Serves 3-4.

You'll notice in my actual execution of the soup that I added the peppers and peas before the pasta; don't do that.  It overcooks them, since they're in pretty small pieces and tend to cook rapidly anyway.
Also, this functionally comes out like a soup/noodle bowl, and we both found forks useful in eating this!

Possible variations:
Add whatever veggies you want, really.  I will advocate heavily for keeping carrots in there since it brings a lovely sweetness paired with the sour broth, and the mushrooms bring a rich flavor to the soup.  But, obviously, if you don't like mushrooms or don't like carrots, substitute as needed.
To take out some of the heat, remove the ribs and seeds of the jalapeno/serrano pepper before chopping.
Of course, chopped fresh ginger would always bring a nice depth of flavor to this versus powdered ginger; add it when you're sauteing the chicken and onion.  Water chestnuts and bamboo would also be welcome additions I'm sure. 

As always, I hope you enjoy this recipe as we have!  Take care!