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

Hearty Chicken Soup

vegetable 'scraps'

3/4 lg. green-orange pepper

2 carrots

3 stalks celery

1 med. onion

1/2c wild rice blend

4 peeled San Marzano tomatoes

~ To peel: drop them into rapidly boiling water for 10-15 seconds. Immediately, scoop them out with a large slotted spoon and into a container of ice water. Stir them gently, then leave to chill 10 minutes, then peel, quarter and chop.

Greens - thinly sliced:

kohlrabi greens

celery greens

green onion tops

2-3T chicken Better Than Bouillon

1-2T Penzey's Maharajah curry powder

8oz. roasted chicken cut in bite size pieces

Today my vegetable scraps were cabbage cores and odd onion pieces from making coleslaw yesterday, that I chopped fine.

The rest of the vegetables were chopped or sliced into a 3 quart pot with 2c of yesterdays coleslaw (from the top of the bowl to avoid the dressing) and 2T EVOO. Sauté these and the kohlrabi greens, which need more cooking than the other two, until sizzling. Add the rice, then add about 1c fresh cold water from a pitcher of 6 cups. Bring this to a strong bubble then reduce to a simmer, cover and let cook a half hour.

Add the tomatoes, the onion tops and celery greens, the rest of the water, soup base and curry powder. Simmer another half hour, stir in the chicken, cover and let stand another 10 minutes before serving. . .Lin

Smoked Chicken Rice and Vegetable Soup

1 3# smoked (fully cooked) chicken

2T EVOO

⅓ lg. yellow onion - minced

1-2 c sliced green and purple cabbage

3 carrots - sliced-chopped

1-2 c chopped celery

½ T whole tellicherry peppercorns

6 cups of fresh cold water

6-8oz. chopped kale - cooked
¾-1c sour cream

Begin by sautéing and stirring the vegetables and pepper in the olive oil.  While that's happening, disjoint the chicken.  Pull off the skin, scrape off any fat on the inside and save this smokey skin.  Scrape fat off the meat, wherever you see it.

Once the vegetables are scenting your kitchen, it's time to add the chicken pieces, rice, remainder of the big onion, cut in chunks, and the defatted skin.  Cover this with about half the water, stir and bring to a simmer.  Cook this, covered, on low heat, stirring and checking it occasionally.  When the celery and rice are done the way you like, remove from the heat.  Pull out the skin and meat.  Add the rest of the water, cover and chill.  Mine is currently doing it's chillin'-thing in a big snowbank on my back deck 😉

Decide how much chicken you want to add to the finished soup.  Pull the leg, thigh and back meat into strips, chunks or cut it into cubes.  I'd suggest saving the breast meat for another recipe.  I'm brainstorming a chicken Waldorf salad recipe right now, which I'll post next.  I might even create another recipe!  I'm shocked at how much meat there is on this little smokey chicken!

Several hours later, or the next day, when the fat has risen and solidified, scrape that all off and throw it away.  Add the chicken,  cooked kale and sour cream. Bring back to just a just low simmer, being careful not to boil the soup.  Check the flavors making any corrections needed. Serve nice and hot, to take the winter chill away.    It would be great with a nice, crispy salad.

Mmmmm. . .It's Soup!! 😃 Come And Get It! . . . Lin

Chicken and Rice Pie

See previous recipe for ingredients:

2-3c leftover rice blend

1 jumbo egg

In a medium glass bowl, combine the rice and egg with a fork until well mixed.  Spread it into a greased 9" glass pie pan.  Bake at 375° until lightly browned.

½ head of cauliflower

8-10oz. frozen chopped broccoli

just a little bit of water

Chop the cauliflower and simmer with the broccoli and water for 7-10 minutes.  Add remaining leftover chicken.  Use as filling for the crust.  Bake at 375° until edges of the crust are nicely browned and the surface of the chicken is a little dry. . .Lin 

Special Christmas Chicken and Rice Pilaf

Special Christmas Chicken

24 chicken thighs

Skin the thighs, put them in a 6-8 quart pot, season with bay leaves, peppercorns, garlic salt.  Cover with water and simmer for 60-90 minutes until cooked - when a fork poked into the thickest part of the meat comes out easily.  Using a large slotted spoon, transfer the thighs to a large, folded brown paper bag lying on the counter to absorb liquid and grease.  Chill the cooking water to make skimming the fat easy the next day.  After fat is skimmed off, heat the remaining gel-liquid, strain several times, then chill to use later in recipes calling for chicken broth.  I did all this a couple days ago.  After I removed all the remaining fat and bones, I broke the meat up a little and put it into a 5 quart pot, then froze it.  You can make it ahead in this way, or do it in two consecutive days, refrigerating rather than freezing the meat.

2T butter

½ lg. sweet onion

1 lg. purple shallot

12-16oz. fresh mushrooms

½ bunch kale

⅔c roasted red peppers

Saute' the first group of aromatic ingredients, in a 3 quart pot, until the onion and shallot are translucent.  Cut the rib out of the kale then slice the leaves in thin ribbons.  Chop the red peppers into little cubes.  Add these to the pot.  As this cooks, put some of the chicken broth (below) into the pot to keep everything from sticking.  Cover and simmer on low heat 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, in a large glass bowl, stir together all but the last ingredient, in group below.  When combined, pour into the pot with the aromatic ingredients.  Stir and heat.  If this is too thin, add the cornstarch 'slurry' to thicken it.  Bring to a simmer.  

⅔c sour cream

1c half and half

2 packages dry onion soup

1t ground Italian seasoning

1-2t good quality lemon pepper

1 can cream of mushroom soup

15oz. jar sun dried tomato Alfredo

½c capers - drained and rinsed well - optional

3c of the homemade jelled chicken broth

1-2T cornstarch dissolved in cold water*

Pour the sauce over the chicken in the 5 quart pot, combine carefully and refrigerate until just before serving.  To serve, put pot on low-medium heat, cover and stir occasionally once everything is bubbling, so it doesn't stick to the bottom.  This chicken and sauce mixture would be a perfect filling for chicken pot pies!  Just add some lightly cooked frozen peas and carrots and pour into a puff pastry shell, covered with another layer of puff pastry.  Mmmm!

Christmas Rice Pilaf

¼c butter

¾c pine nuts

½ lg. sweet onion

1½c chopped celery

4oz. chopped mushrooms

½ med. purple cipollini onion

3c mixed rice (wild, brown, red and barley)

4½c chicken broth and water

Stir and saute' the first group of chopped-sliced ingredients together in a big (5-8 quart) pot.  When the onion scent is filling your kitchen and the grain mix is starts to snap and brown, you can add the liquid.  Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 30-60 minutes, until all the grains are cooked.  Before all the liquid is absorbed, taste it to see if you need to add seasonings.  Other than what was in the chicken broth, I added about a tablespoon of Better Than Bullion-Vegetable flavor.  That was all that was needed.  Put this into a big glass casserole container.  If you make the rice ahead, stir and taste it before heating to make sure it's not too dry.  You may need to stir in more seasoned liquid.  I'll be serving the chicken and rice with Joann's Danish Cabbage for our Christmas Dinner this year. 💝~Merry Christmas Everyone~💝 . . . Lin