Cream of Chicken Wild Rice Soup

I'm on a Panera kick and I'm crazy about their Chicken and Wild Rice Soup! Even though it is May, it has been rainy and cold for so many days here and I love soup anytime... so I began checking out recipes for a tasty Chicken and Wild Rice soup! Unfortunately, most soups required a can of cream of chicken soup - and I do avoid using those types of additions.

Um, this tastes just like a chicken and rice stew or even a chowder! It is so rich! Crusty bread is a must have to enjoy this soup! 

I used Rice Select Royal Blend which is a blend of Texmati white, brown wild & red rice. But I think that any rice could work.

I can't get over how EASY it was to assembly. I'm talking about maybe 5 minutes of prep work and then another 5 to make the roux. Happy eating!

Crockpot Chicken Wild Rice Soup
Adapted from: Pinch of Yum
Serves: 10

1 cup uncooked wild rice
1 pound chicken breasts (2-3 chicken breast)
2 cups mirepoix (chopped celery, carrots, and onions)
6 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning (blend of rosemary, oregano, sage, ginger, and marjoram)
½ cup butter
¾ cup flour
2 cups whole milk
a few tablespoons white wine (optional)
up to 2 cups additional milk or water

Place the uncooked wild rice, raw chicken, mirepoix, chicken broth, and poultry seasoning in a crockpot. Cover and cook on high for 4 hours or low for 7-8 hours. The chicken should be cooked through and the rice should be soft.

Remove the chicken breasts and using two forks, shred the chicken. Return the shredded chicken to the crockpot.

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the flour and let the mixture bubble for 1 minute. Slowly whisk in the whole milk until a thick, creamy mixture forms.

Add this to the crockpot and stir to combine. Add extra water or milk to adjust the consistency as you like it. Season with additional salt and pepper.

Beef Stew

Here is a yummy (and easy) slow cooker beef stew recipe! I found the recipe off All Recipes. I selected it based off the over 2000 reviews. Because this was a meal that included kids (and they will refuse to eat a meal based on seeing certain ingredients) I blitzed the onions and celery in the food processor so that there were no visuals. Keep the potatoes and the carrots in the larger chunk sizes so that way they aren't mush after cooking for so long.

I prepped and assembled the meal the night before and kept it in the fridge. I woke up on Saturday morning, plugged in the slow cooker, then we ran our errands and attended our sporting events. We came back to a delish and warm stew!

I also made a loaf this dutch oven bread.

My dad's tomato based beef stew recipe can be found here!

Slow Cooker Beef Stew
Serves 6-8

3 - 4 pounds beef stew meat, cut into 1 inch cubes
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 1/2 tsp oregano
1 heaping tsp paprika
1 heaping tsp garlic powder
2 bay leaf
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp of gravy master
1 onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, sliced
4 potatoes, large dice
4 carrots, sliced thick
2 cups beef broth

12 oz frozen peas

Put all the ingredients (minus broth and peas) in the slow cooker and stir together so everything is coated. Then add the beef broth and give another stir. Everything will be a soupy mess.
Cover and cook on low for 10-12 hours or on high for 4-6 hours.

About 20 minutes before serving add the bag of frozen peas.

Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup

A big winter storm blowing in up north... So I thought I'd give you guys a new recipe to warm up with! Pretty much this is a chicken noodle soup but with lemon added to the broth. But it is a light meal if you have a bigger lunch and this can be prepared very quickly!

I adapted this recipe from two blogs (Panera's Low Fat Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup and Two Peas and Their Pod) to create the recipe below.

To adjust this to a faster cooking time use precooked chicken (left overs or store bought rotisseree chicken). If you have fresh chicken instead, cook it in the skillet while the onions/carrots/celery are cooking and the broth is starting to come together. This also would have a been a great soup minus the chicken too, just add in some extra veggies and it would be so flavorful!!
 
I didn't have orzo so I broke up some pieces of linguine and used that instead. I had a small bit of broccoli left over so I added that in the pot. Some baby spinach or green beans also could have been a nice addition. I might sub in chickpeas or cannellini beans next time fo the chicken.
 

Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup

Makes 2-3 servings

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 small onion, diced

1 carrot, peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch thick

1 celery stalk, thinly sliced

4 cups of chicken broth
Zest of 1 lemon

Juice of 1 lemon (about 1/3 cup)

1 bay leaf

1 1/2 cups orzo pasta

2-3 cups diced chicken

1 tsp dried flat-leaf parsley

Salt and pepper, to taste

In a large stockpot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Sauté the onion, garlic, carrots, and celery until tender, about 5 minutes.

Season with salt and pepper.

Add the chicken broth, lemon zest, and bay leaf and bring to a boil.

Add the chicken and simmer until chicken is cooked through, about 15 minutes. Add dried parsley and lemon juice.

Meanwhile, cook pasta separately according to the box directions, and then combine into the soup when serving.

Discard the bay leaf prior to serving. Ladle the soup into bowls and serve!

Wonton Soup

Are you ready for my Wonton Soup recipe? I know you have been waiting to see when it would be posted.

While the assembly might take a while (maybe about 1 1/2 hours), this will provide you with lots of meals if you eat alone like me *tear* or a big family meal and a couple small meals. If I am making this for dinner for someone or with my family, I convince my brother or whoever is around to help with the folding.

You can buy all the ingredients at the Chinese grocery store, but also at your regular market. These are in the refrigerated section. Stop and Shop has them near the fresh produce area I think. I normally get the white ones. This time I did a taste test and they have a different texture when cooked but both are fine and I don't really have a preference.

Twin Marquis, Wonton Wrapper (Shanghai style)

Twin Marquis, Wonton Wrapper (Hong Kong style)

The recipe is easy to adjust based on your tastes. Add in more or less of things. Add more meat to the dumplings or make them smaller. Since this is a easy to make/time consuming to assemble recipe I make a double batch to freeze a bunch. That becomes my I'm-starving-after-work-and-need-to-eat-right-now dinner.

I will use ground turkey or pork depending what is on hand at the time. If I had a choice I think the pork is a better texture and has more flavor. For the shrimp, cut them into about 4 pieces and close to the same size. The shrimp cooks fast and you don't want it to over cook. Until you know what seasonings you want for ground pepper/soy sauce/ginger/etc, make and cook a test dumpling then add in more of whatever seasoning you are looking for.

I have never have the correct amount of wrappers to filling so I sometimes toss in some of the wrappers in the water with the wontons and eat them as noodles.

Freeze them on a flat cookie sheet for a couple hours. Then feel free to put into a freezer Ziploc baggie or in a container of your choice!

I made a video of how to fold them but it didn't save properly... I'll make another one next time. In the meantime here is a YouTube video (sorry, music is really loud): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ33n10ht88. There are many different ways to fold them, as simple as a triangle or really fancy folding techniques. The only problem with the triangle is when you freeze them, the corners may break off.

Put it all in the bowl!

Between a tsp and a tbs of filling, wet two connecting edges
with water, fold into a triangle

Be sure to press out all the air and seal the edges well

Hold triangle flat, middle tip facing you. Wet the top of the right
corner. Fold straight outwards and place the left
corner over the right corner, press to seal.

If you layer them separate with plastic wrap, parchment paper,
or wax paper to prevent sticking

Enjoy!!

Wonton Soup
Makes 1 package of wonton wrappers

1 lb ground turkey or pork

3 - 6 stems of scallion (green onion), chopped

5 - 10 shrimp, not cooked, chopped into fourths (optional)

1 can water chestnuts, chopped

Square Wonton wrappers

1 egg

Ground black pepper
1 - 3 tbsp Soy sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp rice wine
1 big can Chicken Broth
Optional: Green Veggies

Mix everything but the chicken broth and green veg until just combined.
Use a spoon and put the tsp of filling into the middle of each wonton wrapper.
Wet 2 sides of the wrapper with water and fold into a triangle. You can leave them like that or hold the triangle flat, with the point facing you. Place one edge of the right corner over the left edge and pinch together.
Boil water in one pot and heat up chicken broth in another. Cook the vegetables in the chicken broth.
It takes about 4 minutes to cook the wontons if they are fresh. About 6-8 minutes if they are frozen. Cut one open and see if the meat (no pink) and shrimp (pink) are cooked through, if so, serve up! (Bigger ones take a bit longer and smaller ones will cook faster!)

Chicken & Veg soup

I'm on a soup kick if you hadn't noticed. I also adore veggie soups, the veggies add so much flavor to the chicken broth.

I find this to be a very filling soup and also can be assembled quickly. One of the changes in timing is the chicken. If you have left over, rotisserie, chicken in smaller bits... it shortens the time. I generally start with a frozen chicken breast, so that increases my cooking time.

Spices can be easily adjusted. I use 1 heaping tsp poultry seasoning and a bay leaf, as well as salt & pepper, but you can be specific with the thyme or rosemary too, I just don't...Sometimes I add in a tsp of oregano too.

Green beans, zucchini, broccoli, celery, carrots, cut them up!

 Cut veggies. Heat oil in a large pot. When hot add in carrots, celery, and kale stems. Let them soften for a few minutes. Add spices and chicken now.

 Add broth, green beans, zucchini, broccoli and cook for about 5 minutes.

 Add beans and kale when everything is cooked. These ingredients just need to heat through. The zucchini could be added in here if you want too.

Serve over pasta, rice, or as is!

Celery & Carrot Soup

I make soup and then end up with extra celery and carrots! I could eat them plain.. but no thanks. Instead I decided I'd find a new soup recipe to make up. Ta da!

Celery and Carrot Soup!

5 carrots, sliced them up, not peeled.
4 stalks of celery, sliced them up, includes leaf part
1/2 Onion/onion powder, 1 tsp
2 small cloves of garlic, or 1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried tarragon
1/2 tsp oregano
2 cups chicken/vegetable broth
1/2 cup white wine

Heat some oil in a pot. Add onions and garlic and cook for about 3-5 minutes. Add in celery and carrots, tarragon. I also added some oregano (a few shakes). Stir and let this start to soften for about 5-7 minutes. Add in broth and white wine (I used Riesling) and simmer for an additional 15 minutes.

I pureed a few ladles of the soup and then added it back in.

Serve hot!

This made enough for 2 servings.

I could imagine using less broth and making it into a thicker sauce and using it on pasta. Or with a nice turkey club sandwich on the side. Or maybe add some ginger too! I thought about adding in some cream, I've never made a cream based soup though so I didn't know how much to put in. I think it would have added a nice dimension to it.

Kale, Canneleni Beans, and Sausage soup

Kale season!!! This is a pretty fast soup, can probably be made and cooked in a half hour. I went a little overkill on the kale because I think it is so tasty, but adjust according to your preferences. Kale will wilt, but not as much as spinach. You can also use less broth and serve it as almost a sauce over pasta too.

I like Italian sausage because it has all the seasonings in it. I add extra black pepper and garlic, but that is just my preference.
 
Kale, Cannellini Beans, and Sausage soup
makes 3-4 servings

1/2 cup onions, diced
1 tsp garlic powder
salt & pepper
5 -8 kale leaves
6 cups chicken broth, I do a big can and do 1/2 that can filled with water
1 carrot
1 celery stalk
2 hot Italian sausage, out of casings

Prep kale
Hold kale leaf by the stem, the leaf part pointing down to the cutting board. Use knife and slide it along the stem, separating the leaf off the stem. Cut kale to bite sized pieces. The stems are edible, but tougher and need extra time to cook.

Make soup

Saute onions, garlic powder, kale stems, carrots, and celery. Once starting to get soft add in sausage, kale, and broth. Let cook at a rolling boil until sausage is cooked through and kale is tender.

Serve over pasta if you'd like.

Cream of Chicken Soup

Winter is coming!! And I want to add to my soup repertoire (?). I found this recipe on Pinterest. We all know I'm not very good at following directions... but I also imagined it to be thick like a chowder which was not correct so I made some changes to make it what I wanted it to be. The verdict? A yummy thick soup.

Next time, I'll add potatoes. I think I would dice up the potatoes, and put them in a few minutes after I put in the carrots and celery.

First I prepped the chicken since directions called for it to be cooked in the oven. However, this takes way too long. Next time, I'll dice it up and cook it in the pot. Less dishes too. Love that! Or use a rotisserie chicken and toss the chicken in at the end. Now that would just make things too easy...

 

While the chicken was cooking I sliced up the onions, carrots, and celery. I did a lot of celery because I wanted to use the whole bunch up.

 Melt some butter.

When butter is hot and foamy add in the veg! Saute onions, carrots, and celery in the melted butter.

 Once softened add the flour. Stir it around well so it coats all the veggies. (My chicken wasn't cooked all the way so I threw it in the pot to let it all simmer together.)

Add chicken broth and milk. (I forgot chicken broth...and used the dried bullion cubes, I think that is why it looks so yellow in the picture).

 Top with some green onions/scallions and serve!

Cream of Chicken Soup
Serves 2-3

2 tbsp butter
2-3 cups of diced onion, carrots, celery
2 chicken breast (about 1 pound)
Salt & Pepper
1/2 cup flour (I wanted it thicker)
1 bay leaf
1 tsp poultry seasoning (recipe calls for 1/2 tsp thyme, but I don't have it)
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups milk
2 tbsp heavy cream (omitted because I forgot to buy it)

Melt butter in a big pot. Add onion, carrots, and celery and cook about 3 minutes. Add bay leaf and poultry seasoning, salt & pepper and cook until soft. (Add diced chicken if you are using raw, let it cook most of the way, about 5 minutes)

Add flour and cook another 2 minutes to make sure everything is coated and butter is absorbed in to it.

Add chicken stock and milk. Let simmer about 20 minutes while soup thickens. Add shredded chicken and then add cream. Top which fresh green onion.

Tuscan Bean Soup

I love hearty soups for lunch and dinner! I've seen variations of this Tuscan Bean Soup, so I decided to improvise and use many of the flavors that I had already in the kitchen.  Spicy, warm, and hearty, I serve this soup with some pasta.
When you use kale you normally don't include the stems, I chopped the stems up rather small and put them in the pot with the celery and onion to give it extra time to cook. I also didn't have enough kale so I added in some collard greens.

The soup gets most of its flavor from the sausage but I wanted to add a little more flavor with the oregano and red pepper flakes.Using chicken sausage is a leaner option and the soup doesn't get a greasy texture either but maintains all the flavor.

For extra protein I added the chicken breast in addition to the chicken sausage and the can of beans.

Enjoy!


Tuscan Bean Soup
Approx 6 servings

Ingredients:
Olive Oil
3 stalks of Celery (diced)
1/4 lg Sweet Onion (diced)
Kale stems (diced)
1 chicken breast (chopped small)
2 hot Italian chicken sausages (out of the casings)
1 tbs Tomato paste (optional)
to taste salt and pepper
6 cups Chicken stock
1 can Cannellini beans
1 tsp red pepper flakes (to taste)
1 tsp oregano (optional)
8-10 pieces Red Leaf Kale (chopped up)
4 pieces Collard Greens (chopped up)

Directions
Heat some olive oil in a large pot, saute the celery, onion, and stems until onion is translucent.
Add chicken breast and sausage. Break up sausage as it cooks.
Once meat is cooked add in tomato paste and enough broth to just cover the mix. Stir until paste dissolves.
Taste. Add a little salt (sausage has a lot of salt in it already), and fresh cracked pepper.
Add in rest of chicken stock and let it simmer for 10 minutes.
Add in beans.
Taste. Add in red pepper flakes, oregano, more s & p as needed.
Wilt the greens into the soup, about 10 min.
Depending on the levels of broth at this point I added in an extra 2 cups of water.


Serve over pasta or rice (Optional).

Chickpea and Lettuce Soup

I have had the majority of 2 heads of lettuce sitting in my fridge waiting to be cooked into something tasty. However, I'm not much of a salad person. So what on earth can you do with that much lettuce? Luckily, I found this Chickpea and Romaine Lettuce recipe. I also had all the ingredients- it was fate!

I read the recipe a few times and decided I'm going to make a few changes. I have some celery that is nearing the end of its shelf life, I only had one tomato so that was just going to have to work, and I'm trying to add more protein in my diet so a chicken breast would supplement the chickpeas nicely.

I start prepping the ingredients. Chop up the onion, celery, and tomato. I measure out the spices: turmeric, paprika, cayenne pepper, and garlic powder. They are such lovely colors! I was going to take a picture but I spilled the garlic powder over other colors... not so pretty. I've never used turmeric before and I was excited to try it! I defrost the chicken (1 chicken breast, about 20 minutes soaking in cold water before it was soft-ish) and diced that up. Wash and slice up the lettuce into ribbons. Now, I'm ready to cook!

Add the onion and celery into the pot, let it get a little soft, stir in the spices, then add in the chicken.  Now I didn't really know when to add the chicken, but it seemed right. It could absorb the spice flavors, release some of its juices into the bottom of the pot, and be able to saute instead of boil. Once the chicken was mostly cooked I mixed in the tomato and let that cook up for a few minutes.

Then I added in the broth and water and let it cook for a few minutes, then added the lettuce. I dropped several handfuls of lettuce into the pot letting it wilt into the soup. The soup had a nice kick to it (in an Indian food spicy way, not a salsa way) and the broth was a nice rich yellow-y orange color. The lettuce was similar to a cabbage rather than a kale or spinach. I'd make the recipe again and try it with those other green veggies.

I actually had a lot of broth left in the pot that should have been doled out.

The recipe calls for cooking the pasta in a pan, saute style, then letting it cook in the soup for a few minutes. I don't like soggy pasta and made enough of the "base" for several meals so I cooked the pasta separately in an amount that I would be eating for that meal. If I'm bringing soup to work I'll bring rice (rice doesn't get mushy like pasta does...) in a separate container, heat soup and rice up, then combine before eating. That's just me though, I know it doesn't bother most people... :)

Note, I like my food a little spicier, the amounts I used are in parenthesis, but start little and add more. You can always add more, its much harder to take out the spice.

Chickpea and Lettuce Soup
Makes 4 servings

Ingredients

4 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, chopped (1/4 onion)

2 stalks of celery, diced

1 clove garlic, minced (1 tsp garlic powder)

1/4 teaspoon turmeric (1/2 tsp)

1/2 teaspoon paprika (3/4 tsp)

1/4 teaspoon cayenne (1/2 tsp)

1 chicken breast

2 plum tomatoes, chopped (1 tomato about the size of my fist)

2 cups drained and rinsed canned chickpeas (one 15 oz can)

3 cups low-sodium chicken broth or homemade stock

3 cups water (2 cups)

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 pound vermicelli, broken in half

1/2 head romaine lettuce (about 2/3 pounds), shredded (about 5 cups)

1. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil. Add the onion, let it cook, add seasonings (approx 5 minutes), add diced chicken, stir some more, stir in the tomatoes (approx 5 minutes)
2. Add the chickpeas, broth, water, and salt. Boil then simmer.
3. Cook pasta according to instructions (at the same time as step 2)

Happy eating!

Cabbage Soup

I am part of a farm share program, so each week I get lots of veggies that I try to to use up in a creative manner. However, my go-to creation? Soup.

I just love soup. It is so versatile and you can put almost anything into it and it will be good. So today I  set out to use up some of the lonely veggies that were sitting in my fridge.

Oh, I also received a beautiful Cuisinart food processor for Christmas this year. Any excuse I have to use it, I use it. That said, I put some onion, carrots, celery, and mushrooms through the grater section of the food processor. I am still in awe of how fast it chops things.

Next sauteed the veggies and some seasonings (garlic powder, salt, pepper, and oregano) in some oil in a big soup pot for a few minutes. I also had some potatoes from the past 2 weeks of veggies, so I needed to start using those up, so added in some diced potatoes.

Now for the star (and mystery) ingredient: Cabbage. I have never cooked with cabbage and I don't think my mom has made it for me before. I researched it a little, its in the same family as broccoli and cauliflower, its green and leafy so I figured it would be similar to cooking with kale, chard, or spinach... So I wash it, chop it up into ribbons, and find it has a stem in the middle! So I cut the stem out and into the pot it goes!

Soup does its flavor blending thing on the stove for probably half hour. (And I found about half a cup of rice in the fridge, so that went into the pot too).

As one of my friends the other day said, "Soup is the tea of food." Enjoy!!

Next time, I would include some chopped chicken or a can of beans (white beans or chick pea) for a more filling soup. And maybe some red pepper flakes.

FYI: Generally when I make soup, I just keep adding to it, and have huge vats that I can freeze. BUT potatoes get funky when frozen.


Ingredients:
1/4 (?) Onion
5 Smaller Carrots
3 stalks Celery
4 little Mushrooms
1 tsp Oregano, Garlic Powder
S&P to taste
4 small Potatoes (diced)
1/2 head of Cabbage
8? cups of chicken broth

Saute first 6 items. Add in the rest of the ingredients.

Makes approx 6-8 servings.