Chicken Wild Rice Soup

Happy Soup Sunday. Look Mom, Dad, I posted on a Sunday. A few months ago, Jes and I stocked our freezers with some of our favorite soups. I actually think this soup may be our absolute favorite. My mom started making this soup oh I don't know about 15 years back or so... Getting older really messes with your timeline :) It was a hit and we have never looked back! Have I ever showed you guys how gorgeous my mom is!

Here she is early morning this Christmas, talking to little man about the ornaments and bulbs!

So without further ado, the soup. You can use turkey, chicken, pheasant, grouse, or I don't know, whatever poultry you have on hand. Leftovers work really well for this soup too! Jes and I didn't have any leftover turkey or chicken so we boiled 2 large chicken breasts and diced it up. You will need 2 Cups.

Click on the recipe below to go to all recipes for the printable version

Servings: 6

 Yield: About 8 Cups of soup

• Ingredients: 
• 1 Onion, chopped

• 2 Celery Ribs, chopped

• 2 Carrots, diced

• 1/2 C Butter

• 1/2 C Flour

• 4 Cups Chicken Broth

• 2 Cups cooked Wild Rice
• 2 Cups half and half

• 2 Cups diced, cooked chicken

• Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions

1. In a large dutch over (or soup pot), sauté onion, celery, and carrots in butter until the onion is transparent. Reduce heat to low. Add flour and cook until bubbly. Gradually add the chicken broth, stirring constantly. Bring to a boil; boil for 1 minute. Reduce the heat and add the wild rice, cream, chicken, and salt and pepper. Simmer for 20 minutes

Chop those veggies fine, and then throw that stick of butter in the pan to heat it up

You could let it melt all the way, but I was getting impatient!

Oh my gosh, veggies in butter. I could just about eat it now. You may have noticed that a carrot, celery, and onions are the base of just about all my soups. Yep, they are amazing, and should be the base of many of your soups too!

Let them cook down about 10 minutes

Yumm! Now reduce the heat to low.

Okay, this is how we make our soup thick and delicious, Add 1/2 Cup of flour

Stir and cook until it starts to bubble. Not a great photo, but you will see it better at home when you are making it. Then add the Chicken Stock slowly, stirring constantly, this will help keep the flour butter roux from clumping!

You need to bring this mixture to a boil and boil for about 1 minute.

Okay, now it is time for the half and half, the chicken, and the wild rice.

Salt and Pepper to taste, to me this means liberally

Stir it up, and let it simmer for 20 minutes.

This soup is one of our family favorites. it is delicious and actually easy to make if you have the wild rice on hand. We cook up a big pot at a time and freeze it, 2 cups, in a ziplock bag. 

Because this was for our freezers, we put it into 4 Cup ziplock screw on locking lid containers and went ahead and froze it. Make sure you have a bit of extra room at the top so the soup can expand while it freezes. It makes enough for 2 containers.

Okay, you made it to the bottom of the post, confession time, I add 1 extra tsp of chicken bouillon to my soup! It just pushes it over the edge in terms of flavor, but the sodium can be reduced by not doing it! The soup is so good as is, but I love my salt!

Enjoy :)

Andrea

Spicy Lentil Soup

Hi everyone, I am sorry for the long break.... Jes and I have been very naughty! Did you know that Jes has a make-up youtube account? It is pretty awesome, but also takes a lot of her time. I have a classroom blog as well. Unfortunately, that one is private to the students in my classroom, so I can't share with you all the fun I have everyday!

I logged on and noticed we had over 1000 site views since I have been on last. I suppose that doesn't seem like that much, but it made me realize, maybe I should keep posting. Especially since my dad brought it up at Christmas this year :)

So, without further ado: Spicy Lentil Soup

 
Jes ended up with a sinus infection while her little man had a double ear infection. What terrible luck really, and on New Years Day. I wanted to make her some soup to help keep her hydrated, and give her a bit of a break from cooking dinner.

Normally, I would make her chicken noodle soup but.... we just got home from Mark's family and our fridge and freezer were fairly empty, I scrounged a viola, I did have the ingredients for Lentil Soup.

4 C. Chicken Broth
1 Stalk Celery
2 Carrots
1 Onion
3 Cloves Garlic
1 Can Diced Tomatoes (with Green Chilies because I like a little heat)
1/4th tsp Thyme Leaves
1 Bay Leaf
1 1/4 C Lentils
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
1 Tbsp Cooking Sherry

 Chop the Veggies

 Pour Olive Oil in the bottom of the pan, heat it up.

 Add the carrots, celery, and onion. Meanwhile, chop up that garlic.

Cook the veggies until tender, about 10 minutes.

 Toss in the garlic and cook for about 1 more minute. Liberally add salt and pepper to taste.

Pour in the can of diced tomatoes, with green chilies. This is what gives the lentil soup a little bit of a kick and really ups the flavor. If you only have diced tomatoes, no problem! Just toss them in, it will still be really good.

 Add 4 cups of chicken stock, lentils, the bay leaf, and thyme.

 Bring to a simmer, cover and turn on to low heat.

 Let cook for 20-25 minutes until the lentils are soft and the veggies are tender. Add 1 tsp of Cooking Sherry or Sherry Vinegar, I was out of Vinegar.

 I prefer my soup a little bit creamy so I pulled out my immersion blender.

 My aunt gave me the blender for my wedding 8 years ago, it has multiple attachments and it was one of those things that I never knew I needed, and occasionally I find an attachment I can't believe I lived without.

 Blend up that soup until you have your preferred consistency, I like to puree about 1/4 of it myself. Also, if you don't have an immersion blender, you could put it in a mixer to puree it.

 Since this is going to my sisters, I put it in a container for her. I love the Ziplock 4 cup twist on top for freezing/storing soup.

 I also had enough for Mark and I and sat down immediately to eat my bowl. Yes! I did artfully arrange the three carrots on the top. The fact of the matter is that lentil soup, well it's just not that attractive to photograph.

 I was trying out a new no egg bread recipe. My loafs ended up looking like footballs which is awesome!

 The soup and the bread were absolutely wonderful together!

 I even got to spend more time with this little man! He moves so fast that I can't always get him into focus! He doesn't look like he is suffering from a double ear infection does he. What a champ!

I wrapped up one loaf of bread for my sister 

Viola, dinner for both our families is done! Jes got to go to the pharmacy, and I got to spend time with the little man.

Soup was delicious, I love the subtle little kick the green chili's give the soup.

How do you like to spice up your lentil soup?

Enjoy the new year!

Andrea

Soup Day Saturday: Zuppa Toscana

As fall is coming in the northland. Many of us are donning our boots, scarves, and hats. Then we quickly run to the nearest coffee shop for our pumpkin flavored drinks. Why do we run there you ask. Jes went the other day and they were already sold out of the flavoring!

It was a beautiful day, 66 and sunny, but the morning was crisp and cold. Perfect soup making day. One family favorite recipe has come into our clutches within the last 10 years. This is an Olive Garden copy cat recipe. So worth it, don't even let the bits of kale scare you, seriously, best way to eat kale.

We used Baby Kale in this recipe, you can use whatever kind of Kale you have on hand. Target did not carry regular kale. If you use regular kale: Cut off the stem and rough chop.

This soup is a perfect weeknight soup that masks as a weekend soup. Elegant, delicious and EASY

Assemble your ingredients:
3 Cups Kale
1 Pound Italian Sausage, I use Spicy
6 Slices Bacon
1 Large Onion
2 Large Potatoes
3 cloves of garlic
1/3 C Heavy Whipping Cream
6 Cups Chicken Stock or 6 Cups Water and 3 TBSP Chicken Bouillon

Click here for the recipe:
Chop the onions, quarter and slice the potatoes, and mince the garlic.

 Cook us sausage until done

 Remove from pan, but leave droppings.

Chop 6 slices of bacon, you could cook whole and crumble at the end also. Cook bacon. Remove from pan and set aside, Leave drippings.

 Add onion to drippings, sauté until softened. Add garlic to onions and cook one addition minute.

 Add potatoes.

 Add water and chicken bouillon. Bring the soup to a boil and boil for 1 minute.

Turn down the temperature to low and Simmer for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, add the bacon and sausage.

 Add the kale and don't be stingy, it cooks down.

 Give it a stir

Add the cream.

 Simmer for 5 more minutes.

 Serve and enjoy!

Stay warm guys!
Andrea and Jes and the boys, helping us in the kitchen