Chicken, Rice, Mushrooms and Greens - Casserole or Soup

This began as an interesting idea for soup but instead turned into more of a casserole.

With the addition of some sauteed celery, a can of diced tomatoes and some chicken bone broth, that might still happen in a couple days. . .but for now, it's really delicious the way it is.

12oz. white mushrooms - sliced

1/3 yellow onion - finely chopped

2T toasted sesame oil

2T ghee or butter

Stir and saute the mushrooms and onion together until lightly browned, then add:

1/4c Marsala cooking wine
chopped stems from a bunch of beet greens
the other 2/3 of the onion - rough chopped

Stir and saute everything a few minutes whisk together the first 3 ingredients, then add:

4oz. Lemon Artichoke Pesto (Walmart)
another 1/4c Marsala cooking wine
1/2c water

1 bunch sliced beet greens
1 pkg. Lemon & Herb Rice (Aldi)
8oz. chopped rotisserie chicken

Season with garlic salt, black and cayenne pepper. Cover and simmer on low heat until the greens are wilted. . .Lin

Rotisserie Chicken Bone Broth

In a 6-8 quart Dutch oven, put:

skin and bones from 1 big rotisserie chicken

lots of fresh cold water

vegetable scraps

black pepper and lemon pepper

1/2c white or apple cider vinegar

4 bay leaves

Bring this to a low simmer.

Cook this way for 4 hours, covered, just letting everything bubble gently together, stirring occasionally.

Remove from heat and cool an hour or so. Scoop out everything solid, into a colander or strainer positioned over another big pot. Then, also strain all the liquid into the second pot. Wash the first pot and strain everything back into it once again, this time through a much finer strainer. Continue the process until everything's been strained and your left with a pot of rich brown broth. 

Chill many hours, until the fat can be scraped off.

Heat the broth. Funnel it into clean jars, seal and store in the 'fridge. If it seals with a  <p.i.n.g.> it will keep for a couple months. If it doesn't seal, just chill and use it within a week. This is great to heat, and give a big steamy mug, to someone fighting a virus, or make it into some healing soup. This made 104 oz. Each of these jars sealed. .😃. .Lin

Nutty-Crunchy-Lemony, Chicken Salad with Craisins

Start with the dressing.

In a medium glass bowl, whisk together the following:

3-4T Kalamata Olive EVOO

3-4T Heinz Salad Vinegar

1 lemon - zest and juice

1t ground black pepper

1t Lowry's Garlic Salt w/ Parsley

1/2c± EVOO mayonnaise

Stir in: 1c craisins and microwave for 30 seconds to give them a head start on absorbing the dressing.

Chop and add:

8oz. home-roasted, or deli-rotisserie, chicken meat

1c Kirkland Heart Healthy Mixed Nuts

1-2c chopped celery hearts

1/3 lg. Vidalia onion

2/3c tiny dry pasta - cooked al dente and drained

Gently fold everything together. Serve on Romaine lettuce leaves. I love this salad all year 'round. . .Lin

Fresh, Frozen, Instant Healing Soup (lemon-chicken-vegetable)

Hmmm, strange name for a soup, right? 

Well. . .I love to cook for people, and recently someone I'm close to, lost his father, very unexpectedly. We found out that in regard to helping, by cooking for them, what they preferred are freezer meals. To freeze a big pot of soup would require a lot of freezer space. I don't have it here, and don't know what their freezer situation is. To get around this, I decided to prepare everything as usual, but leave out the ingredient that comprises the most volume. The broth. So, for this, I won't use homemade bone broth.

Sauté the following in a 4 quart pot:

2T single source EVOO
3 sliced-chopped carrots
2 big sliced-chopped celery stalks
2 med. onion - chopped
3 lg. cloves garlic - minced
1/2-1t black pepper
1t chicken seasoning

Let this sizzle a bit, turn down the heat, add 1/2c water and 3-4 bay leaves. Cover and let steam-sauté for 5-10 minutes. While this is happening, separate the chicken meat from the skin and bones from 2 rotisserie chicken leg quarters. I put those (skin and bones) in a bag in the freezer with a carcass of a previously roasted chicken. 

Take a big handful of fresh spinach. Pinch off the stems and pack it in a tight bunch. Carefully slice this into thin strips. This is what the French chefs call chiffonade. Next add the zest of one lemon and 2T juice, about half the lemon. Season with the broth base—I used about 3T. Stire, the get the temperature back to a low simmer, cover and remove from the heat. 

Don't let the vegetables cook more than half way. They'll finish cooking later, when the noodles and water are added.

When everything is cooled a bit, put it into an airtight container and into the freezer. Mine fit nicely into a quart size container.

To turn this into 2½ to 3 quarts of soup, put the 32oz. frozen cube of soup into a big pot. Add 1½ to 2 quarts of water, two cakes of gently broken millet-brown rice (gluten free) ramen noodles, and simmer, on very low heat, until everything thaws, heats through and the noodles are cooked al dente.

I'm really glad I thought of this technique. It's one I'll use again in the future. . .Lin

Lemon, Chicken, Rice and Vegetable Soup

Chop, then the sauté the following vegetables in the oil until they start to snap.

2-3T EVOO
1/2 lg. onion
3 big carrots
2 stalks celery
2-3c cubed green cabbage
6c fresh cold water

Add a little water once the vegetables and the bottom of the pot start browning.

Simmer a few minutes, the add:

3/4c twenty minute rice
- - I used Carolina Gold Rice 
2-3T chicken Better Than Bouillon
5 big garlic cloves - minced
a little more water

1t black pepper
4 bay leaves

Simmer on low-medium heat for 20 minutes then stir in:

finely sliced celery tops

8oz. rotisserie chicken

2-3T fresh lemon juice

1-2t dry dill

Continue to cook on low heat just until the rice and carrots are done the way you like. This is a great soup to chase away the winter chill. . 🍲. .Lin

Wild Rice Chicken and Mushroom Soup

This soup happened after a recent trip to Costco where I bought most of these ingredients.

Baby portobello mushrooms, rotisserie chicken, garbanzo beans - not shown, petite Romaine, bell peppers, Better Than Bouillon, Vidalia onions. . .so much good stuff!

Slice and roast 24oz. baby portobello mushrooms that were drizzled with EVOO and seasoned. Toss or stir a couple times during roasting, at 400° for about 30 minutes. Stay with them so they don't scorch. Meanwhile...

Chop the vegetables, then sauté them, with the rice, in 2-3T EVOO until the rice starts to snap.

3 big carrots

2 stalks celery

1/3 red bell pepper

6 big cloves garlic 

1 lg. Vidalia onion

1c wild rice-brown rice

Add 32-48oz. water, 2-3T chicken soup base, and simmer, covered for an hour. Then add:

the roasted mushrooms

8oz. cut up roasted chicken

1 chopped dark green Romaine

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 can drained-rinsed garbanzo beans

garlic salt and pepper

Simmer another 15 minutes or so until the rice and carrots are fully cooked. This is a wonderful, hearty soup for snowy winter days. . .Lin

Quick and Simple Chicken Rice Vegetable Soup

Sauté the rice in the olive oil in a 3 quart pot until it snaps and begins to brown, then add the chopped vegetables.

2/3c 20 minute rice

2T EVOO

    1 sm. yellow onion

    3 lg. garlic cloves

    1 big carrot

    5 or 6 big Brussel's sprouts

    10 asparagus spears

2-3 quarts vegetable-chicken bone broth

6oz. roasted chicken cut in bite size pieces

Stir everything around a bit. When it begins to stick to the pot, add bone broth, a little at a time. Let everything simmer about 20 minutes.

Check the flavors. I added 2T (reduced sodium) chicken Better Than Bouillon. Stir in the chicken. Turn off the heat and leave it on the burner another 10 minutes to bring out all the flavors.

Make a pot of this for someone fighting a cold or the flu. It's also a good recovery soup for after having a stomach-intestinal bug, or anytime you want a nice, comforting pot of soup. . .Lin

Asian Chicken, Mushrooms and Vegetables

I'm still working on that huge Costco rotisserie chicken!

While I sautéed all of this, I was simmering the bones, skins and gelled rotisserie meat juices, along with vegetables, peppercorns, bay leaf, garlic salt and a splash of Italian wine vinegar, on the back burner. This will become another big pot of Chicken Bone Broth. . .More on that, soon. . .

Today I took the last 8oz. of that mushroom medley I bought at Costco and combined those with the other vegetables shown here to simmer-sauté 10 minutes or so, in 2T of a wonderful truffle-infused EVOO. Normally the infused oils are best as finishing oils, but I used it keeping the heat low, since I wanted a lot of mushroom flavor.

I thin sliced the celery and peppers and sautéed them with the mushrooms. The diagonal sliced green onions and half a can of rinsed, drained black beans will go in next.

When I needed liquid, instead of chicken broth, I added some of the black Chai Tea I made earlier, using a little over a cup in total, but adding it only as needed. Actually, what I'm drinking with this, would also have been good to use with it's hint of apple cider vinegar, lemon and ginger! Be creative! Think 'interesting flavors', not just boring cooking liquids!

After 10 minutes, add 5oz. cut up chicken, celery tops, a big splash each of Mushroom Soy Sauce and Sweet Chili Sauce. I also included about 1/2c of organic peanut butter, made from ground peanuts only. This gives it more Thai flavor. Omit it if you're not into nut sauces.

This is great just as is, or served over rice linguini.

This made 3 big servings. Mmmm. . .Lin

Rotisserie Chicken —> Chicken Curry with Vegetables

I've never bought a rotisserie chicken! 😯

I was hungry while shopping recently and kept smelling something WONDERFUL! I followed my nose right to it. I'd been looking at skinless-boneless chicken breasts that looked great, but really expensive. THIS was only $4.99!!! I was sure the sign was wrong and it would ring up at $4.99 / pound since that's about what those breasts cost and they were uncooked. At that point, I was prepared to pay it though, the scent was heavenly! Got it home and found it was a 5-Pound Chicken - for $4.99!

We had part of the chicken on Sunday, when I had my granddaughter and her family over after church. It was excellent, and there's still SO much left! Today I decided to turn some of this into curry. The bones, skin and cooking juices, that were inside the container it was sold in, will become bone broth and a simple Chicken Soup.

Slice or chop, then sauté the first group of vegetables, for 10 minutes. Add the next group and continue to simmer and stir over low-medium heat until the carrots start to soften, another 10-15 minutes. Keep covered between stirs.

2T coconut oil
2 sliced carrots
6oz. sliced celery
8oz. mixed mushrooms
~ (shown in a 1# container, but I only used half)

6 green onions

1 med. purple onion

4 colorful mini peppers

Add the curry, fruit and nuts, and chicken. Bring back to a simmer. Heat and stir 5 minutes, then add the coconut milk, stir, cover and turn off the heat.

18oz. red Thai curry sauce

1c craisins or dried fruit bits

1c honey roasted peanuts

8oz. chicken cut in 1" pieces

13.5oz. coconut milk

Ladle in a bowl, as is for sort of a curry stew. Or serve over rice or pasta. . .Lin