Chicken-Rice Vegetable Soup

I'm on an extend stay currently in Arizona. But with foodies, this doesn't mean our desire to create in the kitchen disappears. Grocery shopping and cooking in a new place can be so fun, especially if you're privileged enough to find an ethnic, or really good Farm Market. . .Cook Where You've Landed, a bit like Bloom Where You're Planted. Have fun with it. Today, I'm making this soup for someone who has a really bad virus, and that would be me!

2-3T single source EVOO

3-4 stalks of celery

3 big carrots

1/2 lg. onion

1 lg. clove garlic

1/3 lg. red pepper

2-3 quarts of fresh cold water

1/3 lg. head of green cabbage

2-3T Better Than Bouillon, chicken

1/2c white rice

6-10oz roasted chicken meat

Drizzle the EVOO into a 4-5 quart heavy pan, heat the oil, then add the sliced or chopped carrots and celery, stir them around a bit, add seasonings now if you'd like. Cover and listen close for a couple minutes. This should bring out a bit of water out so they won't scorch. Next add the aromatics. chopped onion, red pepper and finely chopped garlic. Stir around the pan until the cooking water evaporates. Then add a little of the measured water as needed and again, cover and cook, once it simmers, over low heat for a few minutes.

Add about 2/3 of the remaining water, cubed cabbage and the BTB chicken stock base. Stir, simmer another 5 minutes, then add the rice, cook 15 minutes, stir in the chopped chicken meat, stir, remove from the heat, cover and let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Happy Creating! It's Always Soup Season . . . Lin

Lemon Chicken Rice Soup

Have you ever eaten something that was SO good you felt like it put you back in balance - without even knowing you were out of balance? That's how I often feel after I've made a big pot of Lemon Chicken Rice Soup.

I have several variations here, and of course, none quite like the next. I made this one using the vegetable broth I made the other day, which was a darker broth due to the purple onion in my bag of frozen vegetable scraps. It really has a lot of flavor. This soup came together quick, and it's so good, I'll savor every bowlful!

3 carrots

3 stalks celery

a little purple onion

2T butter and EVOO

Sauté these vegetables together until their scents are released and the onion is slightly brown.

Add the rice, stir and keep on the heat until it snaps, adding a couple cups of vegetable broth, a little at a time, to keep everything from sticking to the pot.

⅓-½c Carolina gold rice

~ or any 20 minute white rice ~

2 quarts homemade vegetable broth

Next add the rest of the chopped vegetables shown, stir and let sizzle a minute or two before adding the remainder of the broth.

3/4c purple onion

1/2c bell pepper

5 garlic cloves

Now, stir in the following:

7oz. roasted chicken meat

zest of 1/2 lemon

juice of the whole lemon

fresh ground black pepper

a little salt or garlic salt

2-3T chicken Better Than Bouillon

Bring this to a low simmer, check the flavors and make any necessary adjustments. This would be a great soup to make for someone fighting a virus, or to keep the viruses away. . .Lin

Carrot, Angel Hair Pasta Soup

Those of you who know me well, know I have an assortment of physical issues. Among these, are several autoimmune diseases that weaken my immune system, resulting in catching common viruses that healthy people usually fight off. Colds and lots of 'gut' stuff.

Often, the only thing that helps calm down stomach and intestinal upset, is a clear liquid fast, followed by simple, easy to digest food for a day or two. This is a good thing to do - to rest our bodies - not only after a bad bout with a digestive bug, but after a time of excessive eating and drinking. Holidays or reunions for example.

I've decided to start a special category just for this, and call it Simple Recovery Food. So many people who are plagued by such things, don't realize the importance of good gut health! When it's irritated, or compromised due to illness or chronic problems, what it needs is a rest from heavy, spicy, solids.

If you find yourself struggling with this, check back here for future additions. Type simple recovery food in the search line, for recipe ideas to get you back to Feeling Good again.

1-1/2 quarts cold fresh water

1 med. carrot, scrubbed and thinly sliced

a little broken up angel hair pasta*

2t Better Than Bouillon - chicken

Bring the water to a boil then add the carrot, pasta and soup base. Stir, turn down the heat and simmer on low, until the pasta and carrots are well cooked, not al dente, to make it easier to digest.

One word of caution, with stomach-intestinal flu, if you can't keep anything down, wait 4 hours from the last time you had a vomiting episode. NOTHING to eat or drink for 4 hours after the last time. Then start with regular cola (Coke / Pepsi, etc.) NOT diet, your body needs a little real sugar now, not chemicals! Stir out the carbonation, then sip that slowly. Cola is the best vs. clear sodas, since there are properties in the cola bean that calm the long muscles of the stomach. At first, stick to just flat colas for 6-8 hours. Then add clear, weak chicken broth for the sodium and electrolytes, then tea and finally water. The next day you can add a few soda crackers and this sort of mild, simple soup.

1/3c rice* would have been better. It's much easier to digest than wheat pasta.

For today, this, some mild lemon tea, and naturally flavored seltzer will be it for me. Resting my gut, yet staying well hydrated. By tomorrow morning, I'm sure I'll feel much better.

A Healthy Gut  =  Optimal Overall Wellbeing

In all aspects: mentally, a strong immune system, healthy mind, reduces inflammation, increases resistance to virus, chronic disease. . .and so much more! Eat well, but carefully, for peak performance in all areas: physically, mentally and emotionally. . .Lin

Delicious Beef and Mushrooms

I made beef barley soup the other day and the meat was too chewy. I still had 8oz. left and decided to work with it rather than chop it up for the dogs. . .sorry pups. It's one of the best things I've made in a long time. The rice makes it more of a Chop Suey sort of dinner, but it would also be great without it to keep it low carb.

Marinate the sliced chopped beef in the following for several hours:

2-3T red wine vinegar

2-3T single source EVOO

1-2T mushroom soy sauce

2T finely chopped purple shallot

3 cloves chopped garlic

lots of fresh ground black pepper

Sauté the beef in the marinade, for a few minutes, before adding 12oz. sliced mushrooms. Cover and continue to cook another 10 minutes before stirring in the rest of the chopped shallot and orange mini peppers. 

Stir-fry until everything sizzles and is cooked as you like it.

This was as good, if not better, when chilled then heated the next day.

Makes 2-4 servings. . .Lin

Turkey Rice Vegetable Soup

It's another soup day here. . .

Yesterday I bought an almost 4# roasted turkey breast. This morning, I cut off a pound and waited for soup inspiration to happen. I started in the usual way by lightly browning the following aromatics and rice. This time in some ghee. I've made my own ghee a couple times, but haven't made our bought any recently. Then I bought a big tub of it yesterday.

4 stalks celery

1 giant carrot

1 sm. onion

1 lg. garlic clove

1 lg. purple shallot

2T ghee, butter or EVOO

3/4c golden rose brown rice

Sauté these together, stirring occasionally while prepping the vegetables listed below. After the first group has sautéed enough to need a cup or two of water, add the remaining ingredients below.

1 sm.-med. green cabbage 

1/2 lg. long-skinny red bell pepper

4 roma tomatoes - peeled* +

2-3T turkey Better Than Bouillon

1 bunch of beet greens sliced-chopped 

5-7c cold fresh water in total

Simmer gently, stir occasionally for another 20 minutes or until the rice is done the way you like it. . .Lin

*tomato skins contain flavonoids, which impart a bitter flavor. they don't break down in cooking so, to me, they add a sort of nasty plastic bag texture. additionally the skins are high in lectin, an undesirable protein that can create digestive issues and inflammation. it's so worth all this 'trouble' though, since the cooking process develops the lycopene in tomatoes. lycopene is a very beneficial antioxidant, similar to betacarotene, that can protect our cells from damage.

+Martha Stewart has the simplest video showing this process. If your tomatoes aren't ripe, you'll need to leave them in the rapidly boiling water just a little longer, maybe 20 seconds total.

!! SPECIAL !! Lemon Rice Chicken Soup

YES. . .SOOO SPECIAL!

My Sweet #1 Granddaughter is at the hospital as I type this, working on the birth of her second baby boy! At her baby shower, we all had to 'guess the date.' Today at 2:45 was my guess, so we'll see how close I get to the actual event.

I had to start a big pot of soup to bring over to them as soon as she texted she was in labor. She's always loved my Lemon Rice Chicken Soups in the past, so this was a logical choice.

2-3T EVOO
8oz chicken tenderloin
1/3c finely sliced onion
3/4c chopped celery
1t Lemon Pepper seasoning
1t Bell Pepper and Garlic seasoning

Sauté this over medium heat in a 5-6 quart pot.  When the onion scent permeates your kitchen, and the chicken is lightly brown, add the following:

1c fresh cold water

1-1/4c sliced celery

3c sliced carrots

Simmer the vegetables 20 minutes, covered, on low heat then add:

zest of 1/2 a lemon

juice of 1/2 a lemon

some chopped celery greens

3T Better Than Bouillon-chicken

1 fresh garlic clove - sliced

5c fresh cold water

3/4c white rice

34c frozen peas

Cover and simmer another 30 minutes or until the rice is done. This is such a fresh, clean, yet comforting soup. Great for someone who has a cold or flu, or just had a baby! . .Lin (Great Grandma 'Bubbie') 😊

Cacciatore Type Chicken, Vegetables and Rice

1/2c± corn flour
Italian seasonings
1-2t fresh ground black pepper
28-32oz. boneless chicken
2-3T Moroccan EVOO

Put the flour and seasonings in a gallon size plastic bag, blow a little air into it and shake until well mixed.

Cut the chicken into bite size pieces and put those in the bag. 'Inflate' again and shake until every piece is well coated with the seasoned flour. Put this in a 4 quart pot containing the hot EVOO. Sauté, partially covered (a splatter screen works well for this) stirring often, over medium heat, until the pieces are golden brown. Scoop them out with a slotted spoon, leaving the oil in the pot. Refrigerate the chicken with the rough-chopped celery, onion and yellow pepper.

Sauce:

Add more oil to the pot, if needed. When the oil is hot, add the following finely chopped ingredients, most of which are seen on the left side of the chicken in the picture above. Sauté until tender.

1/2-1/3c green pepper
2-3 stalks celery
1/2 med. onion
2 lg. carrots
1T garlic

28oz. can tomatoes and juice
1 15oz. can tomato sauce (not shown)
finely chopped celery greens
2T fig Balsamic vinegar
2t ground rosemary
2-3t Italian seasoning
1-1/2t ground roasted bell pepper
1/2t Himalayan salt-seasoning blend
1-2t turbinado sugar

Add the tomatoes, and this group of ingredients to the pot with the partially cooked vegetables. Simmer a while, about an hour to bring out and combine all the flavors. Blend with an immersion blender, then simmer again another hour or longer.

Cook the rice. I used some really nice brown rice, but whatever you like will work well. While that's happening, add the fresh vegetables and browned chicken to the sauce. Simmer until the rice is ready. Spoon this over the rice, serve as is or top with the fresh graded cheese you love. . .then. . .relax and just savor this dinner. . .Lin

Turkey, Rice and Vegetables

I recently took both of my dogs, and my cat, Ms. Daphne, to the vet for dental cleaning, with a total of 4 teeth extracted. Oliver had a big cracked molar taken out as well as surgery to remove a jaw tumor removed.  My old dog Penny previously lost 2 and this time there were 3 that had to come out 😟 But she's one tough old girl, by late the next day, she was back to her old self! Daphne is older too, but she just had a cleaning since her teeth are healthy so far.  (maybe she brushes and flosses when I'm not around 😉) 

When the vet sent me home with their pain meds and antibiotics, she emphasized Soft Food for two weeks for the dogs, and a couple days for Daph. Well, they're all 'crunch' lovers, so plain hot water on their food isn't their favorite.

I added some scrambled eggs, but kept remembering years ago, making cooked and fresh-raw food for them. I checked the fridge and freezer and found just what I needed! This would work as an excellent re-introduction to regular food again, for any humans in your life recovering from a bad stomach-intestinal bug. . .or, like my fur-kids, painful dental work. I Lin-Taste-Tested it, of course, and it's really good!  If you're considering making food from scratch for your toddler, I think they would also like it!

12oz. ground turkey. . .
~ (chicken, lamb or beef)
1c brown rice (or white)
2T good quality EVOO
~ chopped onion ~ FOR HUMANS ONLY. . .
. . .onion and garlic can be lethal for dogs

Saute these ingredients together over med.-high heat, with 2+c of fresh, cold water nearby to add to prevent sticking and burning.  Add a little only as needed.  You'll get a LOT of natural flavors if the meat and rice brown nicely.  Then add the following finely chopped vegetables:

2-3 med. carrots
4 big stalks of celery and lots of greens
1/2 med. head of green cabbage
2T Better Than Bouillon (turkey)

When the meat and rice are nicely browned, add the vegetables and soup base, and the rest of the water.  Simmer, covered on low heat until the rice and vegetables are soft. Keep an eye on the water, adding a total of 2-3 cups from start to finish, more or less, as needed.  I hope everyone in your home stays healthy. If not, give them lots of good food, and water, to get them well again. .🙂. .Lin

Rice, Legumes and Vegetables

1c brown and wild rice blend

1/2 med. onion - chopped

2T good quality EVOO

1c mixed lentils and split peas

2 stalks of celery - chopped

2 medium carrots - sliced

1 14-16oz. can petite diced tomatoes

1 big spoonful of Vegetable Better Than Bouillon

~ (I used chicken...so this time it was not vegan)

2-4c fresh cold water

~ (I used a total of 2-1/2c of liquid)

Sauté the first group until the rice is sizzling and snapping.  Add a little of the water, cover and cook a few minutes before adding the rest of ingredients.  Start with a 2-3c of water, stirring occasionally and adding more if needed.  Also use the juice from the tomatoes to give this even more flavor.  Cover and simmer on low heat until the liquid absorbs.  Check the flavor and chewiness of the grains and legumes, adding more liquid and cooking longer if needed.  After adding the second group of ingredients, it only needed to cook another 20 minutes.  This is a great main dish.  You could add toasted sunflower seeds if you want, for a little more protein, flavor and texture.  You could also serve this as a side, with grilled shrimp, fish or chicken.  Mmmm!  It's really good! . .Lin

Quick-Easy Vegetable Soup

This is another 'clean out the 'fridge soup.'

Always fun to make.  And since I love variety, most of my soups are not recipes I repeat, other than a few of my favorites. I knew my zucchini was still good, but getting 'tired.' So I used 2 of those and will use the other in an egg thing that's formulating in my brain.

I sliced the carrots into a 4 quart soup pot with 2T of hot EVOO. To that I added half the onion, half the garlic smashed-chopped, 3/4c brown Basmati rice. Stir and sauté this on medium-high heat for several minutes. Pour a couple cups of water over it all, then add the rest of the vegetables shown, sliced or chopped, and a 28oz. can of tomatoes. Break those up or use petite diced tomatoes.

Add a good amount of fresh ground pepper, a couple tablespoons of chicken or vegetable soup base, more water as needed, and any other fresh or dried herbs or seasonings you'd like.  Cover and simmer on very low heat for an hour. Soup like this is so nice on a really chilly winter day. Make a pot! It'll scent your whole house and add some healthy humidity to the air during this dry season.

Stay healthy everyone! . .Lin

Chicken and Shrimp Jambalya

4 oz. andouille sausage
~ I only had chorizo, but that worked well
(Mexican Jambalaya?)

1 lg. onion

4 stalks of celery

¾ green or orange pepper

3 lg. green onions

7 lg. cloves of garlic

28 oz. petite diced tomatoes

~ or peeled frozen tomatoes

2-3 c frozen okra

1 cup white rice

Saute' the first group of chopped ingredients in a couple tablespoons of avocado oil in a 4 quart pot.

After this mixture scents your kitchen, 5-10 minutes, add the green onions, garlic and continue to cook another few minutes before adding the next group and a couple cups of cold water.  Cover and simmer 15 minutes.  Stir and check flavors, adding soup base or other seasonings if needed.

For the last few minutes, add the chicken and shrimp.  These shrimp were pretty big, so I cut each in 3 pieces.  Stir again after everything's cooked and ladle it into big bowls.

Being such a soup person, I overdid the water a bit, and ended up with Jambalaya Soup!  Add as little or as much water as you want. . .Lin

Chicken Leg-Gizzard Soup With Vegetables and Rice

The other day I was in one of our bigger grocery stores, looking for a protein other than chicken, since I've used that in so many recipes lately.  I did recently make a tiny pot of duck, lamb and barley soup, which I'm rationing, it's THAT good!  So when some Angus beef top round practically jumped into my cart, I thought. . ."DONE!"  Nope, not so fast Chicken Soup Woman!  What's that I see. . .beautiful packages of  chicken legs and gizzards on special.  88¢/# for the legs and 99¢/# for the gizzards!  I scored 8# of that, but put some away for another recipe.  My first thought was, I'll cook the meat together then pull the gizzards out for the dogs.

However, after a couple Google searches and finding YouTube cooks and chefs extolling the amazingness of Chicken Gizzards, well. . .we'll see how this goes as to who * eats what.  An article I read stated, "all gizzards are giblets, but not all giblets are gizzards."  Sounds like one of those math word problems.  Basically, when you buy a whole chicken it may contain a couple packages of giblets including a heart, neck, liver and gizzard (or stomach).  Collectively, these are called giblets.  Every time I hear  'gizzards' I smile, makes me think of a crabby old man, but that would be a geezer 😉 not a gizzard. . .but. . .technically, that old geezer HAS a gizzard!  One that will NOT end up in my soup!

DAY 1:
Put 3# of chicken legs and 2# of gizzards into a big deep pot.  Drizzle with 2T avocado oil and 2T of apple cider vinegar.  Sprinkle generously with your choice of spices or seasonings.  This time, instead of adding vegetables to make the bone broth, I decided to just stop here. Measure 7-8 cups of fresh cold water, into a pitcher.  Add 1 cup of the water to the pot then stir everything together with a big wooden spoon to coat all the parts and pieces.  Put over medium heat until the mixture begins to simmer well. Cover, shut off the heat, stir occasionally, but basically, leave it covered for an hour or so, to season and marinate all the meat.  (or just add more seasonings and water and skip the marinating time if you'd rather.)

Add the remaining 6-7 cups of water, cover and bring to a low simmer.  After about 75 minutes of total cooking time, using a big slotted spoon, remove and cool all the meat.  Skin and bone the chicken and cut the giblets into smaller pieces.  Set all the meat and gizzards aside.  Return the skin and bones to the pot, adding more water and seasonings if you want.  Simmer this covered for 6-10 hours then chill either in a freezer, or overnight in the 'fridge.  Or, if you live in Minnesota like I do, in the winter, just put it outside in a snowbank, securing the lid well to keep critters out.  Chill it until all the grease solidifies at the top of the liquid.

DAY 2:

Skim the fat layer off, strain the broth many times, through successively smaller mesh strainers, to get it as clear as possible.

In a 5 quart pot, heat a little butter, or oil.  When it's hot and starting to sizzling, add the chopped vegetables, 1⅓c white rice and chopped giblets.

Stir and add the well-strained bone broth in small amounts.  Continue to cook like a stir-fry for several minutes until the vegetables release their scents.  Add a total of 4-6 cups of broth, cover and simmer over low heat, for 15 or 20 minutes.  Simmer about 4oz. of fresh kale, separately, in a little bit of water for about 10 minutes.  Add that and the cooking water, to the pot.

At the very end of this time, add some of the more delicate anti-viral ingredients.  Today, it's chopped fresh and candied ginger, lemon zest and juice and celery tops that I added to simmer a few minutes longer. Gently stir everything, check the flavors, add more of the original seasonings or a little good quality (no MSG) soup base, pepper or whatever is needed.

Add however much chicken you want in the soup, a little or a lot, for the last 5 minutes of cooking, just to warm everything.  If there's leftover chicken, it's is good with steamed vegetables, added to a casserole, or made into chicken salad. . .Lin

* Okay, my verdict: Gizzards are Fabulous!  I did cut up some of the more grizzly parts for my dogs and cat and they also loved them!!

Be Bold - Be Creative - Stay Healthy and Make Soup!! . . . Lin

Chicken! Lotsa Chicken - and - Lemon-Rice Chicken Soup

Today my plan was to clean the 'fridge, and make a nice pot of chicken soup.

I recently found some gorgeous drumsticks.  I put them on paper towels to dry, thinking they'd freeze separately.

So today, I was going to take out 5 or 6 for the recipe brewing in my head.  Well, I was wrong.  All 14 or 16 of them froze in this giant LUMP! 😕 Not separable, no matter how I tried.

Well. . .now what?  They're in my big 8-quart pot, slowly steaming-simmering.  Once I can break them apart with a wooden spoon, I'll cover and turn off the heat to let them finish thawing slowly for an hour. 

The Chicken Stock Pot

My lunch on "Making Stock Day"

Next, I'll make a big, slow, pot of chicken stock by adding vegetables, leaving the skin on and boiling on low for an hour or so.  See my recipe idea below.  Then I'll remove all the solids, give the dogs ONLY the rinsed celery and carrots chopped up in their food.  Set aside some of the cooked ingredients for yourself too 😋 

Next, I'll cover the pot and put it in the snowbank on my deck until the fat rises, solidifies, and I can skim it all off.  Then it will be strained several times and. . .it's Chicken Stock!  Once cooked and cool, I'll use 6 for this soup and zip-lock the rest in two bags and freeze to use in other recipes.

Chicken Stock:

Chicken Stock Ingredients

4-5# of chicken legs

½ med. yellow onion

1 head of garlic cloves

3 stalks of celery

celery leaves

2-3 big carrots

½T Thai seasoning

½T powdered rosemary

2T Heinz Salad Vinegar

juice and zest of 1 lemon

½T good black peppercorns

~ Tellicherrys are my favorite

*fresh cold water to cover everything

To the chicken in the pot add all the ingredients above.  First peel off most of the garlic 'paper', scrub the bulb then carefully slice it horizontally into 2 equal halves.  Peel and quarter the onion half, chop the celery into 2-3" long chunks and do the same with the scrubbed, but not peeled carrots.  Add the rest, stir together gently, cover and simmer at a low bubble, for a total of 45-60 minutes cooking time, stirring occasional. (*I added extra water since I'm going to make more than just for the soup.  I'd like an extra quart, to have for several days as a 8oz. daily 'tonic'.  This is very similar to really healthy homemade bone broth.)  Check the thickest part of a chicken leg for doneness.  If a fork inserted comes out very easily, it's done.  If not, put it back for another 15 minutes, then check again.

When done, transfer all of the chicken legs to a colander put on top of the open pot to drain.  After 5 minutes, the colander then put it on crumpled paper towels to finish draining and cool.  Put the cooked drumsticks whole, or just the skinned-boned chicken meat, in desired amounts, into heavy zip-top bags.  Press out the air, seal well and freeze.  It's now ready for chicken salad, casseroles, Chicken Cacciatore, or even more soup, whenever you need it.  Just thaw the sealed bag in a pan of warm water.

Lemon-Rice Chicken Soup:

1 med. onion

2 stalks celery

3 big carrots

4c chopped kale

2T Rosemary EVOO

the soft garlic paste

6c +/- strained chicken stock

Cooked chicken from 6 legs

1c 15-20 minute Saffron Jasmine Rice

Simmer-saute the vegetables together until they release their scent and become a little translucent.  Squeeze the garlic out of the shells.  Use it all or just a little.*  Put the garlic and stock in the pot now also, stir, cover and simmer on low heat 15 minutes.  Add the skinned, boned chicken and rice, stir, cover and cook another 15-20 minutes until the rice is the way you like.  Mmm, have I mentioned how much I love soup!? . . .Lin

*If you love Bruschetta, you might like the extra garlic mixed with Basil Pesto, spread on crispy Italian bread, topped with fresh, chopped tomatoes and Parmesan.

Multi-National Gumbo

½# Chorizo sausage

¾ c 20-minute white rice

2 T smokey bacon grease

2 big carrots-finely diced 

1 c finely diced onion

1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes

1 t thyme-ground or leaves

1½ t good Italian seasoning

½ t cayenne pepper

½ t black pepper

2 bay leaves

1 t sea salt

1 t sugar

Here it is, Thanksgiving week, and I can't get New Orleans Creole Sausage and Shrimp Gumbo out of my mind!  Sooo. . .what do you do?  You Make Some! 😃 Mine isn't exactly done according to NOLA standards though, more my own free-form version.  I didn't have 3 ingredient that I needed though, so I devised a way to do this in two steps, until I could buy some celery, green pepper and okra.

Squeeze the sausage out of the casing into a 4 quart pot.  (Chorizo is Mexican, Andouille is Creole, but I'm not a fan.)  Add rice, EVOO, and a handful of onion and carrot.  Saute' this until it browns and begins to stick to the pot, stirring all the while.  Add 1 c of water and repeat the procedure.  Add the next group of ingredients, and another cup of water.  Bring to a simmer for a couple minutes, cover and shut off the heat.  Chill this until the next group of ingredients are cooked and ready to add to the pot.  Then...

rest of the diced onion

rest of the diced carrot
1½-2 c sliced celery
1 sliced green pepper

2 T smokey bacon grease

8-12 oz. frozen okra
lots of chopped celery greens
BTB soup base - lobster or chicken flavor

1-2 c water
8-16 oz. shrimp

Saute' these vegetables in butter in a 2 quart pot or pan until sizzling nicely and a little translucent.  Add the okra, water, cover and simmer 10 minutes.  Pour this into the main pot with the shrimp.  Bring it all to a simmer for another 5 minutes then serve with some really good, crusty French bread.

Yup, Multi-National Gumbo.  Yummm! . .Lin