DOA In The Kitchen: Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

While making out the weekly grocery list I ask for suggestions for the next week's menu.  Sometimes I get nothing, sometimes something new is requested.  This week, chicken with wild rice soup was offered, and the recipe that was suggested was from Allrecipes.com.


http://allrecipes.com/recipe/23852/creamy-chicken-and-wild-rice-soup/


This soup doesn't take long at all to make, thanks to the quick cooking rice required.  I used Uncle Ben's Long Grain and Wild Rice mix.  I feared the soup would be sort of bland tasting, but it was flavorful and tasted better with every bite.

Served with Vienna bread, crackers for the cracker fans, and slices of Swiss and cheddar cheese, everyone loved it and had multiple bowls.

The only place I varied from the recipe was the part where they have you take the chicken mixture off the burner briefly, I simply turned the heat down to three.

I'm looking for a recipe for another day using real wild rice, but this one will do for a nice Sunday soup for the nonce.

You Say Tomato

My favorite soup is Tomato.  I grew up with Campbell's and love it but oh how I want to make my own with fresh ingredients and a bit more flavor.

I tried one recipe that tasted too much like tomato juice, just shy of V8. Agh.

Today I went for a creamy tomato soup. I thought as I was making it that it had too much basil. The basil kind of smacks you, then when that passes it tastes near perfect.

I have yet another recipe to try and if it fails I'll drop back to today's recipe and pare the basil down to something like a quarter tsp.

It was a rather tragic meal all around.  The electric fry pan went kablooie but not before just burning the bajee out of the grilled cheese sandwiches.

My husband proclaimed that he doesn't like tomato soup at all and "you can eat it if you want to".

You know what mom would say, right?  "We are not so easily defeated".

Chicken with Rice Soup from Two Peas & Their Pod

Ah the cool weather makes you want a nice bowl of soup, doesn't it?  I have a desire to become a really good soup maker. 

I started with Chicken with Rice Soup because it seemed simple and tasty and just a good place to start.

I found this recipe that looked just as I wanted my soup to look:

Easy Chicken and Rice Soup Recipe

by Two Peas on February 19, 2010

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 medium carrots, cut diagonally into 1/2-inch-thick slices

2 celery ribs, halved lengthwise, and cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices

4 fresh thyme sprigs

1 bay leaf

2 quarts chicken stock or broth (we use low sodium)

1 cup of water

1 cup long grain white rice

1 1/2 cups shredded cooked chicken breasts

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Place a soup pot over medium heat and add the olive oil. Add the onion, garlic, carrots, celery, thyme and bay leaf. Cook and stir for about 6 minutes, until the vegetables are softened but not browned. Pour in the chicken broth and water- bring the liquid to a boil. Add in the rice and chicken; season with salt and pepper. Cook on medium-low until the rice is tender-about 30 minutes. Serve hot.
*Note-for the shredded chicken I used 2 large chicken breasts. I boiled a pot of water on the stove and added in the chicken-which I cut into large pieces. Boil the chicken until it is cooked all the way through and there is no pink left. This will take about 7 minutes or so. Drain the water and shred the chicken once it is cooled. I use 2 forks to shred the chicken. *


My Notes:

I had many of the ingredients.  I liked that I didn't have to pre-cook the rice ahead of time.

I find cloves of garlic to be too strong and the taste to be acrid so I peeled one and snipped a few tiny slices slices off of the end of a clove. Plenty! 

I used powdered thyme, had no bay leaf (but now I have some :) and I used ground pepper, not the freshly ground stuff.

I cooked the chicken breasts for about half an hour and poked them with a fork to make sure they were cooked.  Removing the skin wasn't too bad of a job.  I used the single fork method to removed the meat from the bones/breast.   I poured in about three cups of the broth made by cooking the chicken in place of some of the broth.  I didn't get my chicken pieces quite as small and tidy as I might have.

Next time I make it I would reduce the uncooked rice to 1/2 cup because I'd like it a little more soupy, if you know what I mean.

The soup was the best soup I've ever eaten.  Wonderful flavor, just the best.

I see below my spouse wants all the rice, so we'll stick with one cup.