Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

I'm not a huge fan of soup, as a rule. Actually, I'm just not a huge fan of soup as the main course of a meal. It never really seems to fill me up. This one was an exception.  Serve it with homemade dinner rolls and it's meal.

Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

Here's the original recipe (from Allrecipes.com):

Ingredients

• 4 cups chicken broth
• 2 cups water
• 2 cooked, boneless chicken breast halves, shredded
• 1 (4.5 ounce) package quick cooking long grain and wild rice with seasoning packet
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 cups heavy cream

Directions

1. In a large pot over medium heat, combine broth, water and chicken. Bring just to boiling, then stir in rice, reserving seasoning packet. Cover and remove from heat.
2. In a small bowl, combine salt, pepper and flour. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in contents of seasoning packet until mixture is bubbly. Reduce heat to low, then stir in flour mixture by tablespoons, to form a roux. Whisk in cream, a little at a time, until fully incorporated and smooth. Cook until thickened, 5 minutes.
3. Stir cream mixture into broth and rice. Cook over medium heat until heated through, 10 to 15 minutes.

Printable Recipe

I changed it a little, because I didn't have everything on hand.  I used whole milk, instead of cream.  Next time I may even use skim, because I don't think it would change the finished product the way it is used.

I also added large chunks of carrots, because I LOVE cooked carrots.  They added a nice change in texture and a sweet counter to the savory flavor of the soup.  I would have liked to add celery, but alas the only celery I had was molded and smooshy in the bottom of my vegetable bin.  (I've since cleaned and replaced the bin :-)

I didn't have Wild Rice with Seasoning Packet so I just used 1/2 c. wild rice (4.5 oz. is 1/2 plus 1/16th cup), and to taste (probably a quarter tsp. each) garlic, onion powder, fresh ground pepper, and poultry seasoning.  I let it boil a little longer than called for, because it wasn't a quick-cook rice.  Next time I'll cook the rice separately and add it in for the last five minutes.  I may add more rice too, I like wild rice's a lot!

One more thing to do differently, I would omit the salt.  Because I used chicken soup base with water, instead of chicken broth.  It was a little bit too salty.

I give it four stars, because I really liked it.  The fifth star will come with my changes next time.  It was really filling and stored well.  I'll be finishing it for lunch today.  Totally restaurant quality soup.

Do you have a favorite soup?  

Do you serve soup as a side or main dish?

Thursday is our scheduled Soup day, so this will be going on my Thursday menu.

Baklava

Around my eighteenth birthday, I took a trip with my parents to Greece.  We spent about two weeks traveling through Athens and the nearby islands.  It was wonderful!  One of my favorite things was eating massive amounts of pastry and a dessert called baklava.

If you've read my blog much, you know that I don't approve of baking nuts into dessert.  This is my one exception.  You can't make Baklava without nuts, and you wouldn't want it any other way.

It's a layered dessert, and it's as simple to assemble as lasagna.  I used this recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 (16 ounce) package phyllo dough
• 1 pound chopped nuts
• 1 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup honey

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F(175 degrees C). Butter the bottoms and sides of a 9x13 inch pan.
   
2. Chop nuts and toss with cinnamon. Set aside. Unroll phyllo dough. Cut whole stack in half to fit pan. Cover phyllo with a dampened cloth to keep from drying out as you work. Place two sheets of dough in pan, butter thoroughly. Repeat until you have 8 sheets layered. Sprinkle 2 - 3 tablespoons of nut mixture on top. Top with two sheets of dough, butter, nuts, layering as you go. The top layer should be about 6 - 8 sheets deep.
   
3. Using a sharp knife cut into diamond or square shapes all the way to the bottom of the pan. You may cut into 4 long rows the make diagonal cuts. Bake for about 50 minutes until baklava is golden and crisp.
   
   
4. Make sauce while baklava is baking (Remember, I made this ahead, and used it cold.) Boil sugar and water until sugar is melted. Add vanilla and honey. Simmer for about 20 minutes.
5. Remove baklava from oven and immediately spoon sauce over it. Let cool. Serve in cupcake papers. This freezes well. Leave it uncovered as it gets soggy if it is wrapped up.

There's really no point in copying the nutritional information, it's sad and depressing to look at the calories of such a beautiful dish.

I followed the directions almost exactly, because I'd never made it before.  I did however take three days to make it.  I'll explain.

First, I chopped the nuts in my food processor.  I used the nuts I had in my cupboards.  Peanuts, Candied Cashews, and Almonds.  Then I realized I hadn't thawed my frozen phyllo dough, and left the nuts on the counter until the next day.  Then I put the dough in the fridge to thaw.

Then next day, I prepared the honey sauce.  Then, because some of the All Recipes reviewers suggested using a cooled sauce, I put that in the fridge and waited until the next afternoon to assemble to whole thing.  I also took another reviewers suggestion and roasted the nuts with the cinnamon.  Do that.  

I tried a piece directly after the honey shower while it was still warm, and it was not nearly as good as the cooled version a few hours later.

Hubby didn't like nuts, even in this.  He's might be culinarily challenged.  It made about 30 large pieces. I could have halved each one again.  I froze all but two plates (ten pieces), one of which I am not ashamed to admit I ate.  The other went to a friend.  I took another two plates from the freezer later that week and served them at a church meeting.  Another went to someone's birthday party.  A hit every time!

Bajio Style Salad

If you haven't been to Bajio in Utah, I'm sorry.  It's delicious food.  There are many restaurants with that style of salad, like Cafe Rio, etc.  So I make a version of that at home.

The uncooked tortillas from Costco are essential.  It's the only way to get the fresh restaurant taste.  Then I make rice in my rice cooker.  I use the normal amounts of water for my rice, and then add a tsp of lime juice and about a T. of cilantro paste.

To the ranch dressing in my fridge, I add a tsp. of cilantro paste, a squeeze of lime juice, and some milk or buttermilk.

I used the same meat as from the BBQ pork this week.  I didn't change anything about it, it was perfect just reheated in the microwave.

I made black beans by using the canned beans and adding a few pinches of garlic salt, cumin, salt, pepper, chili powder and onion powder.

Dice some tomatoes and use crushed tortilla chips, or tortilla strips (which I can't find anywhere.)

Layer starting with the tortilla, then I like my bed of lettuce first, rice, meat, beans, toppings.  Of course cheese on top.

Another yummy dinner!  I didn't take any pictures.  By the time I got it cooked and served, my right bicep was aching from holding the baby and he needed to eat or I believe he might have melted away.  I ate mine cold, half an hour after preparing it for everyone else.  It was still good.

Hawaiian Haystacks and BBQ Pork Shoulder

Hawaiian Haystacks were yummy as usual.

I had intended to use the leftover chicken from the dumpling dinner for the Hawaiian haystacks, but alas after that didn't work out, I resorted to my usual method of just throwing three frozen chicken breasts into the crock pot.  Recipe:

3 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, frozen
1 or 2 cans cream o' soup (I used chicken this time, sometimes I use half chicken half celery)
Season to taste, I use about 1/2 tsp. onion powder, garlic salt, and pepper, and then a dash of cayenne pepper.

Put ingredients into crock pot.  Turn on low for 4-6 hours, until easily shredded with a fork.
Voila!  Cooked chicken in a gravy.  It's amazing how the soup changes in the crock pot.  It would be a totally different thing if you just used the cooked soup over cooked chicken.

We put this sauce over jasmine rice and top with pineapple chunks, diced tomatoes, chow mien noodles, celery and whatever other veggie sounds good at the time.  Delicious!

BBQ Pork shoulder worked well too.

I used a 4.5 lb. pork shoulder.  Put that in the crock pot on lowest heat for about 4.5 hours (from when I woke up, until we returned from church.)

 Then I removed the pork, poured out the disgusting fat that I didn't want mixed in with my sauce, and returned the pork to the cooker.

Over that, I poured half a recipe of this bbq sauce from scratch.  I didn't pre-cook that part of the sauce since it would cook for so long in there anyway.  I did cook what was left, and just let it sit out until the pork was done, about 5.5 hours later.

It cooked for a total of 10 hours on lowest heat (my crock pot has 4 heat settings, and one of them is 10 Hours Low.)

When it was done, it pulled off the bone very easily and shredded with just the wooden spoon.  This one had only one large bone, so it didn't cause me the hardship that the chicken did the other day.  Phew!

We had it on top of toasted sesame buns with a side of fruit salad.  Awesome! Looking forward to lunch leftovers.

February's First Menu

Here goes:

Thursday: Santa Fe Salad with Cilantro Ranch dressing
Friday: Butter Chicken (Chicken Makhani) with homemade Naan bread
Saturday: Biscuits and Country Gravy w/ Sausage
Sunday: Slow cooked bbq chicken wings, butter rolls and potato salad
Monday: Fajitas with steak strips
Tuesday: Baked sweet potatoes
Wednesday: Spaghetti w/ meatballs

Already made the Salad.  Tasty!  Next time I'll make more dressing.  It would have gone well with lots of things.  1/2 c. ranch dressing, 1 Tbsp. chopped cilantro, 1 tsp. mild taco sauce (from Taco bell.) Salad was just romaine hearts from a bag, roasted corn niblets and black beans, grilled chicken - chopped, cheese, diced tomatoes, crushed tortilla chips.

Going to start tomorrows dinner tonight by marinating the cubed chicken in tomato based butter sauce, with spices, and plain yogurt overnight.

Should be a tasty week.

Goal: make these favorite dishes a little healthier.  Less butter, lower fat ingredients, etc.  Gotta keep my arterial walls in mind.


Last week went well.  Made most dishes as planned, although the order was mixed up a few days because I didn't go shopping when I thought I would.  Didn't get around to soaking my own beans for chili.  Next time I really want to try that.  Plus using my own dry beans would save a lot of money over buying all the different types of beans in a can.  I think I'll buy the varieties I like in my chili, and put together bags of the different combined beans to just dump and go on chili nights.  Crock pot usage would save time and several pots.  We'll see.


See ya!

Three Layer Chocolate Cake

I wanted to make a boxed cake that I bought at Safeway.  Dark Chocolate Mint Cake.  Then hubby asked "could it be made with milk chocolate, instead of dark?"  So I tried to come up with my own, saving the box for a time when I was alone and could enjoy it's decadence by myself.

I used the measurements for liquid on the box, then substituted with a chocolate cake mix from my cupboard (when Target has cake mixes for $.79 I can't help myself.)  Spread onto parchment paper in jellyroll pan, and bake 15 min.  It wasn't very even.  The liquid was less than the box called for, and therefore the mixture was very thick.  Hard to spread evenly.

Still, I cut into three bricks, the short length of the pan, and cooled.  I made chocolate icing from my Hershey cookbook and topped with Andes Mint pieces.  Yum!

Once again, I couldn't get to my camera before hubby took a test bite (or three.)

What to change:
1. More careful about spreading mix evenly before baking.  Would have laid out more nicely.
2. Just use the box, it came with everything, and hubby really wouldn't have noticed
3. Keep camera handy so he can't bite into the corner before I get a good picture

My holiday baking/cooking summed up in photo

Here's the only post I'm going to get for the last few weeks.  I thought about writing a little blurb for each one, but I can't.  Because I really don't want to.  Two kinds of pot pie, a birthday cake, and a smores cookie bar.  I cooked/baked a lot of other things, but the camera wasn't handy.

Peanut Chicken becomes Burritos

Ok, so that would make a gross burrito.  Still, the menu said Peanut Chicken, and that's a far stretch from where we ended up.  I took too long decorating the house and mopping the kitchen floor, and didn't leave time to thaw chicken breast and make peanut chicken.  (Though I still might make it for my hubby, who won't be home for another hour.)

Our standard burrito:
Uncooked tortillas from Costco
1 lb. Ground Beef
Taco Seasoning
black or pinto beans (tonight, black)
Shredded cheese
sour cream
tomatoes

Brown tortillas.  Cook beef with seasoning, drain and add beans.  Assemble and enjoy.  Very easy!  Always a hit.

A Lotta Lasagna

Tomorrow I'm taking a lasagna to a potluck, so tonight I made two large pans.  I had half a box of regular noodles and half a box of no-boil noodles.

I ate the no-boil version because I was worried the noodles wouldn't be cooked through (like last time) and didn't want to put my name on that one at church.

The noodles were cooked, but I have to say, the no-boil noodles are sometimes like eating rubbery paper.  I won't be buying them again.  Great in a pinch, but just don't make a fantastic dish.

The sauce was good, but basic.  Ground beef, seasoned with Italian Seasoning (I should find out what's in that), onion powder because Hubby doesn't think he likes onions and doesn't know I use it - he compliments the flavor every time I put it in, and some garlic salt.

So, another success.

What I learned:
1. I'm not a huge fan of no-boil noodles.
2.  It takes a lot of sauce to make a lasagna.
3.  I can stretch the cheese mix if I have to and it's fine.

I'm going to bed now and the dishes aren't done.  I'll wake up to the lovely smell of uncooked cheese mixture and pasta sauce.  At least everything made it as far as the sink.  Tonight I remembered to turn on the dishwasher with yesterdays dishes.  Also I cleaned under the oven and fridge today.

I boiled you a Roast

Actually, I've done roasts before in the crock pot.  That's the easy way.  Mom always did them in the oven, but mine never turned out well that way (In my imagination, because I never actually tried it before.)  So today I thought I'd experiment with the slow-cooker feature on my oven.

Two thoughts have prevented me from doing this before.  They are 1: My gas oven will be running for hours, and gas costs like $3.50 a gallon these days.  2:  Will it really work? and 3: Can I trust it not to burn my house down while I'm away?

So, I prepared the simplest roast I could think of.  A three lb. three and a half dollar roast I bought on sale at Safeway.  No sure what cut of meat it was, but I asked the butcher for something "really really cheap."  I figured if I might ruin it, I didn't want to pay much.

Then I put my simple roast in a roasting pan, without a rack.  Then I put some carrots beside it so it would look like I tried to serve more than one food group (or food pyramid piece) to my family.  Slow Cooker button on Hi (like Hello, interestingly)  and off to church I went feeling like a domestic queen for sure.  I didn't tell Hubby that the oven would be on the whole time.  He would likely have nixed the whole idea.

When we came back, the house was still standing and it smelled beautiful and beefy.  The meat fell apart and the carrots were really salty from having cooked in beef juice and seasonings for 5 hours.  It was delicious.  Hubby requested that I make it ALL THE TIME.  I'm pretty sure he clings to my successes with a little more intensity so he doesn't have to test out all my failures as often.  The gravy was even good.

Roast:

3 lbs cheap meat
2 Tbsp. Montreal Steak Seasoning

Rub meat with seasoning.  Put in oven.  Make sure oven is on.

Gravy:

2ish Tbsp. butter
1/4 c. flour
2 c. beef stock
seasonings to taste (salt, pepper, more montreal)
beef drippings

Melt butter, stir in flour and mix well.  Add stock, seasonings and drippings.  Stir until thickened.  (I cheated here and used some potato flakes from the mashed potatoes I made from a bag, because my gravy wasn't as thick as I wanted.)

Voila!  Dinner that hubby liked!

What I learned:
1. Meat is meat.  Cheaper is not worse than expensive when slow cooked.
2. The slow cooker feature is for real on my oven and I may not be able to live without it from now on.

Still awaiting PG&E bill...