Chicken Noodle Soup

Sick kids and a cold day made this the obvious choice for dinner on Friday.

Chicken noodle soup is pretty basic.

2 frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts
10 baby carrots (or three whole) cut into large chunks (we like a LOT of carrots.)
2 stalks celery, cut into large chunks
2 servings (whatever it says on the box) noodles.  I prefer egg noodles, but this time I used spaghetti.
1 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. dried rosemary
1/2 tsp. Poultry seasoning
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

I boiled the chicken in 6 cups chicken broth (made from water and bullion, but you could use a can.) for 15 minutes.  I find that for soup, boiling is easiest and keeps the chicken moist and easy to shred.

Remove chicken from pot, remove fat and cut into small chunks or shred.  Return to pot.  Add the other ingredients.  Bring to a boil.  Boil for 9-10 minutes or just until noodles are cooked.

Taste the broth and adjust ingredients to your liking.  I added 1 more cup of water because my broth was a little too salty.

With dinner rolls this would have been perfect.  For us it was just the soup and off to bed.

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.

Chicken Dumpling Soup

I used a new recipe, which posted a link to on my Menu post Wednesday.  Really I only used the recipe for the dumplings, and made my own soup.  I rate it 2.5 out of 5.  The dumplings were gross and soggy.  Sorry Bobby Flay, but in this throw down, I win. My usual dumplings are much better.  Although the addition of nutmeg to the batter was surprisingly good.  I thought it would taste funny but I liked it.  I'll add that to mine next time.

To make the soup, I first did what I said I would, and roasted a chicken in the crock pot for about 5 1/2 hours.  This made a very tasty chicken.  I found a major problem with this method though.  The chicken was so "fall off the bone" cooked, that I spent nearly twenty-five minutes searching through the colander (where I had poured the chicken so the stock would go in the pot, but the bones would not) for bones.  I didn't get them all, I just gave up when my husband got home and dinner wasn't ready and my idea for a quick and simple meal had flown itself out of the window.  I took some of the stock from the crock-potted chicken, added a little more water and spices, and assembled a soup.  The dumplings were easy enough to make, but I'll say again, I don't recommend them.

I usually make dumplings by using a homemade biscuit dough, sans the kneading, and drop it in by the large spoonful.  Much tastier.


There's a small fat man sitting on my lap and screaming in a most unpleasant way, so now I'll retire for the evening and see how the Hawaiian Haystacks turn out.  The gravy is slow cooking downstairs...

White Bean and Cheese Soup - Almost Just like Mom's

The house smelled good, and I really liked the soup.  It was just the comfort food I needed after a completely sleepless night with a very cranky-unless-I-held-him baby.

Hubby, not so much.  He promised he wasn't trying to choke it down, but then he almost actually choked it down.  Subtlety and nonchalance are maybe not his strongest points.  He's adorable though, and knew how my day had been, so really he couldn't have given me another response.

Recipe:
1 bag navy beans (my bag said Great Northern Beans)
3 small to medium potatoes, shredded or diced
about 1/3 Velveeta log (not sure how else to say that so it doesn't sound gross.)
1 Tbsp. onion powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground black pepper
1 cup diced ham

Soak beans in crock pot overnight, following package directions.  In the morning add seasonings and potatoes, then turn crock pot to high.  About an hour or two before eating, add cheese and ham.  Mine cooked for six hours and it was just right.  The beans were cooked after 4 hours.

Cornbread accompanied.  I made it with my fancy shmancy new food processor, to which I will dedicate a whole post when I have time.  First batch, not good.  Kinda brick-like.  Second batch much better.  What I learned from the first:
1 Tbsp. and 1 tsp. are two completely different measurements and make a difference when using baking powder.
Don't overmix cornbread batter.  Just get it all moist and stop messing with it.

Reicpe on the back of the cornmeal box.  I'll use another next time and probably also add honey.

Egg Drop Soup - Not a Hit

A friend made me some vegetable spring rolls a while back and I wanted to use them for a meal.  I decided spring rolls would go well with egg drop soup.  I got a recipe out that I've used once before and the Lil' Chef's wanted to help.

First, the spring rolls had to be fried.  I just put about half an inch of vegetable oil in a frying pan on lowish heat.  They were frozen, so I didn't want them to burn.  I let those fry, turning every now and then, while I made the soup.  We dipped them in Sweet and Sour sauce from a bottle I bought at the grocery store.

4 cups chicken broth
Salt
Pepper
1/8 tsp. ground ginger
2 eggs plus one extra egg yolk

Scramble eggs and yolk, set aside.  Combine other ingredients in pot.  Bring to slight boil.  Using your third hand (this is where Lil' Chef got to help) stir while pouring egg through a fork.  Keep stirring until it's all used.  Egg should cook immediately.

This meal didn't go over well.  The soup was good.  The spring rolls were not the best.  Something seemed off about having freshly picked green beans in a spring roll.  My friend will teach me how to roll them soon, and I think I'll use carrots and cabbage and maybe some thinly sliced beef.

The Lil' Chef's were not in a good mood.  One was too tired to eat anything, the other one didn't like the idea of eggs in soup.

What to change:
1. Some other filling for spring rolls. No green beans.
2. Less egg in the soup.  It was tasty, but a little to eggy.  Plus a few chopped carrots and celery would probably have been yummy.
3. Don't tell Lil' Chef's what's in it, if it might be something too unusual for them to process.  Taste first, explain later.  Kinda like fast food.

Ok Chili

There's a restaurant near by our house called OK Chinese Food.  Hubby and I have never been adventurous enough to try it out.  If the owners don't even toot their own horns, we figure it's not worth our time.  Dinner last night was kinda like that.

Menu Item: Chili and Cornbread

Cornbread didn't happen.  I ended up babysitting last minute for a friend, and I don't like to have my oven on when there are lots of little ones running around.

Chili was simple:
1 lb. ground beef
1 packet Chili seasoning from McCormick
1 Can kidney beans, drained
1 can chili beans, drained
1 can prepared chili
1 can tomato sauce

Brown beef, drain.  Return to pot and add seasoning and canned foods.  Stir and heat through for at least 15 minutes to let flavors blend.

Usually I've made this with my own seasonings.  A little garlic, a little onion powder, some chili powder, salt and pepper.  I saw the seasoning packet at Safeway and thought I'd give it a try.  Not bad, not great.

Next time I'll stick with my own seasonings to taste.

Served with cheese and sour cream.  Everyone finished and was full.  That's the point.

What I learned:
1. Shortcuts save on time and usually skimp on flavor
2. I need to recycle more, all those cans just don't look right in the trash.

Gave some extra chili to a friend who had already made baked potatoes.  I wished I'd done that too, but again, it would have required using my oven so it probably wasn't going to happen anyway.