Turkey Salsa Verde Chili

Is it chili weather where you live?  It is here in Wisconsin.  Today I am sharing with you my family's favorite chili recipe. Last winter, I had been wanting to try a turkey chili with white beans. There is a "Turkey and White Bean Chili" in my favorite soup cookbook, Soup of the Day.  It was still a red chili, using tomatoes and chili powder.  I wanted to make it into a "green" chili, using my favorite roasted tomatillo salsa instead of the tomatoes and chili powder.  It was a big hit with my family and I called it "Green Turkey Chili".  My husband informed me that it sounds like it uses green turkey, and that it sounds gross, so even though I still call it that in my head (and in my personal recipe file!), I have renamed it Turkey Salsa Verde Chili for his sake. :)

Turkey Salsa Verde Chili

Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
½ large onion, diced
1-1¼ lbs. lean ground turkey
2 (15 oz.) cans white kidney beans, drained and partially rinsed
1½ cups roasted tomatillo salsa (aka salsa verde)
1½ cups water
½ - 1 tsp cumin
Sour cream, optional
Mexican shredded cheese, optional
Tortilla chips, optional

Directions:
Heat oil in large soup pot over low heat.  Add onion and sauté a few minutes, until it begins to soften.  Add turkey and break up into chunks.  Increase heat to medium and cook until turkey is cooked through and slightly browned and the liquid has evaporated.

Dump in the beans, tomatillo salsa, water, and cumin.  Stir well, scraping up any browned bits off the bottom of the pot.  Increase heat to high and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 10-15 minutes.  Mash some of the beans with a potato masher until slightly thickened.  Simmer a few more minutes, or until it has reached your desired consistency.

Serve with sour cream, cheese, and tortilla chips, if desired.

Makes 4 servings.

I have mentioned this several times before, but I absolutely love the Meijer Gold Del Cabo Roasted Tomatillo Salsa.

I don't live near Meijer anymore, but I got so hooked on this stuff, that I buy several jars every time we go back to Indiana to visit family.  Fortunately, a Meijer is being built here in Kenosha, so I will be able to buy this salsa whenever I want! :)

This chili is so awesome.  The flavors just meld perfectly.  My daughters love it.  They are four and six right now and they can't get enough of this stuff.  The salsa is a little spicy for them, and as they are eating it, they have to stop for water and fan their faces off, but they keep shoveling it in!  It always amazes me, because usually they are super picky about spicy food.

We like to serve this with sour cream and a little shredded cheese, with tortilla chips as spoons.  Mmm, so good! I know I will be making this several times over the winter to come.

What I'm Reading Right Now

Mary Poppins

by P.L. Travers

Doctor Sleep

by Stephen King

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Chicken Bacon Corn Chowder

Is it as cold where you are as it is where I am?  Geez, this weather is crazy!  Yesterday we barely made it to 50, which was the coldest high temp ever recorded for September 11th in Milwaukee.  Yesterday afternoon, watching the Cardinals game, I was freezing!  I considered turning the furnace on, but that seemed utterly ridiculous for the first half of September.  I was really wishing I had soup on my meal plan!  I couldn't get soup out of my head, so I got creative and took my planned meal of Barbecue Chicken Quesadillas and Golden Cheddar Corn Cakes and, using most of the same ingredients, turned it into this Chicken Bacon Corn Chowder and cheese quesadillas.  Meal plans are awesome, but you definitely have to be flexible too!  This is a chowder I made last December and loved.  I immediately thought of it when re-designing my meal plan.  I did have to run to the store for one ingredient (creamed corn because I don't keep that on hand), but I needed milk and some pork that they had on sale anyway.  This recipe is adapted from Better in Bulk.

Chicken Bacon Corn Chowder

Ingredients:

3 tbsp butter

½ large onion, diced

3 tbsp flour

2 cups chicken stock

2 cups whole milk

1 (15 oz.) can whole kernel corn, drained

1 (15 oz.) can creamed corn

6 slices bacon, chopped

2 cups cooked chicken, shredded

½ tsp smoked paprika

1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

Salt, to taste

Green onions, sliced

Directions:

Melt butter over low heat in large soup pot.  Add onions and increase heat to medium.  Sauté onions until they are soft.  Stir in flour and cook for a couple of minutes.  Slowly whisk in chicken broth and milk.  Increase heat to high and boil until it thickens.  Dump in corn, creamed corn, most of the bacon (leave a little for garnish), chicken, and paprika.  Reduce heat to low and stir in cheddar cheese.  Taste for seasoning, adding salt if necessary.  Ladle into bowls and garnish with reserved bacon and green onions.

Makes 6 servings.

I cannot even tell you how perfect this chowder was for our first chilly evening of the season.  It really hit the spot!  Lena, my six-year-old, had three servings!  And then begged to have the leftovers for lunch today.  The only bad thing about this soup is that my little one can't eat it because she's allergic to dairy.  She could probably handle the cheese, but the milk would be too much for her.  So I kept out a little bit of the chicken and the corn and mixed them into some brown rice leftover from the dinner before.

This is a pretty easy soup to put together.  I try to keep a can of chicken in the pantry, especially during soup season, because it's so easy to make a meal out of it in a pinch.  

We did buckle and turn the furnace on in the middle of the night, as the temp in our house dropped into the mid-60s.  We never once made it to 90 degrees this summer and the local weather dude has predicted that we will not reach 80 again this year.  This chowder will definitely be a go-to for us in the season to come!

What I'm Reading Right Now

Mary Poppins

by P.L. Travers

Doctor Sleep

by Stephen King

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Slow Cooker Split Pea and Ham Soup

Is it still soup weather where you live?  It most definitely is here in Wisconsin.  Although it has warmed up a bit (pretty bad when 20 is considered warm!), it is very blustery outside right now and we're expecting another 6 to 7 inches of snow today.  Oh joy!  (Not really.)  So soups are still in heavy rotation around here.  This is a soup I've been making for a while now.  I got the recipe from my friend Liz, who got it from Skinnytaste.  Liz adapted it for the slow cooker.  It works really well in the slow cooker.

Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup with Ham

Ingredients:  

16 oz. bag dried split peas

1 ham hock

1 cup matchstick carrots, chopped

½ tsp dried minced garlic

1 medium onion, cut into 8 pieces

6 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth

1-2 cups diced ham

Salt, to taste

Directions: 

Place split peas, ham hock, carrots, garlic, and onion in 6 qt. slow cooker.  Pour in chicken stock.  Cover and cook on low for 7 hours.  

Remove ham hock  and onions.  Shred the meat from the ham hock and add it back to the slow cooker.  Add diced ham.  Check for seasoning, adding salt if necessary.  Serve immediately.

Makes 6 servings.

I love this soup.  It is so hearty and comforting on a cold winter day.  I have to be honest, though: this soup is not a big hit with my kids.  They are not big fans of beans and bean-type things like lentils or split peas.  And also the green color turns them off.  This soup starts out a brilliant bright green when you first serve it, but will dull in color as the leftovers sit.  I believe these pictures were taken of the leftovers the last time I made it.  

You really don't need the additional diced ham, but I like to add it for a little extra protein.  The ham hocks really give the soup an amazing smoky flavor and the meat is so super tender.  Delicious.

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Carrot and Coconut Soup with Curried Almonds and a Cookbook Review

I use Grammarly's grammar and plagiarism checker because you never know what dinner might turn out to be when there are errors in the recipe!

You are getting a "twofer" today!  A great recipe and a cookbook review.  I don't do cookbook reviews very often, but I have found a new favorite cookbook and I really want to share it with you.  In the Fall of 2012 I checked it out from the library, and marked so many recipes that I wanted to try (66 in fact!), that I added it to my Christmas list and my husband got it for me.  Unfortunately, I didn't use the cookbook at all the first year I had it.  Right after Christmas my husband accepted a new job and we moved from Michigan to Wisconsin.  So between packing in January and unpacking in February, my soup cookbook got forgotten.  Until last month.  I saw it sitting on the shelf, and since we are most definitely in soup season again, I opened that baby up and made a resolution to make one recipe from it every week.  

The great book I am talking about is Soup of the Day: 365 Recipes for Every Day of the Year by Kate McMillan.

This book has 365 different soup recipes.  One for each day of the year.  I love how it lists the recipes by specific calendar day, because they use produce that is in season at that time.  So you can always pick a soup that is seasonally appropriate.  And they are really great recipes.  They are not your boring, run-of-the-mill soup recipes that you've seen a million times over.  They are very unique.  Many of them are meatless veggie soups, which I love.  They make awesome Meatless Monday meals with some yummy bread.  I have also tried some of the soups with meat and they are great too.

The 66 recipes I have bookmarked.

 There is a monthly index at the beginning of each month.

 This photo doesn't do it justice, but the pictures in here are simply stunning.

Today I am sharing with you the very first recipe I tried from this cookbook.  We loved it!  It's a pureed carrot soup with the flavors of ginger and coriander, made super creamy with the addition of coconut milk, and topped with crunchy curried almonds.  Incredible!

Carrot and Coconut Soup with Curried Almonds

Ingredients:

1½ tsp sugar, divided

1¼ tsp salt, divided

1 tbsp plus ½ tsp coriander, divided

½ tsp curry powder

4 tbsp plus 1½ tsp olive oil, divided

½ cup sliced almonds

½ large onion, chopped

2 lbs. carrots, peeled and thinly sliced

1 tsp ground ginger

4 cups vegetable broth

2 (14 oz.) cans unsweetened coconut milk

Directions:

In a small bowl, mix ½ tsp sugar, ¼ tsp salt, ½ tsp coriander, and the curry powder.  Set aside.

Heat 1½ tsp oil in a small skillet.  Add 1 tbsp water and the remaining 1 tsp sugar.  Stir together and bring to a boil.  Stir in the almonds, coating them with the liquid.  Cook for about 45 seconds, or until the liquid has almost evaporated.  Remove from the heat.  Pour the spice mixture over the almonds and toss to coat.  Spread them out in a single layer on parchment paper to cool.

Heat remaining 4 tbsp oil in a large soup pot.  Add the onion, carrots, ginger, and remaining 1 tbsp coriander.  Saute vegetables over low heat until they are softened.  Add the vegetable broth and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to a simmer and cook until carrots are tender, about 20 minutes.

Purée soup using an immersion blender until smooth. Stir in one can of the coconut milk, reserving some for serving. Add remaining 1 tsp of salt. Serve garnished with the spiced nuts and a swirl of coconut milk.

Makes 6-8 servings.

This soup was a huge hit with my family.  The creaminess coming from the coconut milk was perfect as my little one is allergic to dairy and I am lactose intolerant.  So I tend to shy away from soups that have cream added at the end to make them creamy.  This was perfect, not only for making it creamy, but also giving it a slightly sweet coconutty flavor.  Awesome.

My three-year-old, Eva, saw the pic of this soup as I was writing this, and asked if we could have it again tonight for dinner.  That's a pretty good sign!

Other soups that I have made from this cookbook so far are Roasted Garlic Cauliflower Soup, Ham, Bean and Escarole Soup, Sausage and Lentil Soup, and Turkey and White Bean Chili.  They were all really good.  Tonight I am trying the Savory Barley and Wild Mushroom Soup.

So if you are looking to try some new great soups, I highly recommend this book!  The same author has another book, One Pot of the Day, which contains a great one-pot meal for every day of the year. That one is number one on my wish list!

Disclaimer: I was not compensated in any way for reviewing this cookbook. I just really like it and wanted to tell you about it.  I was however, compensated for mentioning Grammarly at the top of my post.  I do think it's a really valuable resource and highly recommend it.  All opinions are my own.

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Beer Cheese Soup and Some News

Beer Cheese Soup.  This is a soup I made for an Advent potluck at church last month.  We did themes each week: Italian, German, Asian, and Mexican.  I made Beer Cheese Soup for the German potluck.  It's really good with a hearty pretzel roll.  I got the recipe from America's Test Kitchen.


Beer Cheese Soup

Ingredients:
4 tbsp butter
½ large onion, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped (or 1 cup matchstick carrots)
2 garlic cloves, minced
⅓ cup flour
1¾ cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 (12 oz.) beer, Miller High Life or Beck’s
2 cups whole milk
3 cups (12 oz.) sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1 cup (4 oz.) American cheese, shredded
2 tsp cornstarch
Salt and pepper

Directions:
Melt butter in large pot over medium heat. Cook onion and carrots until softened, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in flour and cook until golden, about 1 minute. Slowly whisk in broth, beer, and milk. Bring mixture to simmer, then reduce heat to low and simmer gently (do not boil) until carrots are very soft, 20 to 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, toss shredded cheeses and cornstarch in large bowl until well combined. Puree soup in blender in two batches (or using an immersion blender) until completely smooth, return to pot, and simmer over medium-low heat. Whisk in cheese mixture, one handful at a time, until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Serve. (Soup can be refrigerated in an airtight container for 3 days.)

Really good served with pretzel rolls.

Makes 6 servings.

Note: Don't use pre-shredded cheeses. Buy the American cheese at the deli counter, in a solid piece. Freeze it for 15 minutes before shredding for best results. 

This soup is really tasty!  I thought the beer might be too much for me as I don't care for it, but it wasn't overpowering at all.  It was just noticeable.  America's Test Kitchen recommended using Miller High Life, but I couldn't find it at Meijer. Instead, I looked for a German beer and used Beck's. That worked nicely.  The blend of cheeses is perfect.  ATK topped theirs with popcorn, but I served mine with a pretzel roll.

The reason I am sharing this recipe with you today is because it fits in perfectly with some news I have to share.  I am moving to the Land of Beer and Cheese: Wisconsin!  My husband took a call to be pastor of a church in Kenosha, so we are moving there very shortly.  We are really going to miss all the great friends we made here in Michigan, but are excited for our new adventure.  Kenosha seems like a really nice city.  And there's a Penzey's store there. :)

We are moving in less than a month (yikes!), so you won't be seeing much from me for a little while.  I still hope to participate in this month's Improv Challenge on the 17th and next month's Secret Recipe Club on the 4th.  But other than that my blog will be pretty quiet in January and February.  I hope to be back in the swing of things, cooking in my new kitchen and back to blogging in March.

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Creamy Mushroom and Brown Rice Soup

It's been over a week since my last post? I didn't even realize it. I must have been bitten by the lazy blogger bug!  I'll fix that by sharing a yummy soup recipe with you.  This is a soup I created last November but never got around to posting.  It's definitely soup season here in Michigan, so it's a great time to dust this recipe off.



Creamy Mushroom and Brown Rice Soup

Ingredients:
½ oz. dried chanterelles
½ cup boiling water
2 tbsp olive oil
¼ large onion, diced
8 oz. cremini mushrooms, roughly chopped
½ tsp dried thyme
2 tbsp flour
1 cup milk
1 cup beef broth
1 tsp salt
1 cup cooked brown rice


Directions:
Combine chanterelles and boiling water in a small bowl and steep 20 minutes.  Pulse mixture in food processor and set aside.

Heat olive oil in large soup pot.  Add onions, cremini mushrooms, and thyme and sauté until tender.  Sprinkle in flour and cook for a few minutes.  Slowly whisk in beef broth.  Add brown rice and chanterelle mixture.  Check for seasoning, adding salt if necessary.

Makes 4 servings.

This is a very comforting soup on a cold day!  I love the combination of the two different types of mushrooms.  And while you can certainly use vegetable broth to make this vegetarian, I love the the flavor of the beef broth with the mushrooms and thyme.

Whenever I make rice for dinner, I always save the leftovers, even if it's just one cup.  I bag it up and stick it in the freezer and it's perfect for throwing into soups like this.

I'll be back tomorrow with something sweet and Christmasy!

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Apple Cheddar Squash Soup

 Do you serve soup on Thanksgiving?  I never have, but I know a lot of people do.  I've been wanting to share this terrific soup with you for a while, so I thought now would be a good time.  If you are inclined to serve soup on Thanksgiving, this one would be perfect.  It has multiple fall flavors: apple, butternut squash, and sage.  It's rich and creamy and smooth and delicious.  My sister made it once when we were staying at her house and I thought it was the best soup I had ever eaten.  She got the recipe from Food Network Magazine. I've tweaked it just a tad.  Here's my adaptation.


Apple Cheddar Squash Soup

Ingredients:
5 tbsp butter, divided
1 medium onion, chopped
2 medium Golden Delicious apples, peeled, cored, and chopped
1 large white potato, peeled and diced
1½ cups butternut squash, peeled and cubed 
Salt
½ tsp dried sage
2 tbsp flour
⅓ cup apple cider
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup milk
2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, shredded

Directions:
Melt 4 tbsp butter in a large pot over medium-low heat and add the onion, apples, potato and squash. Season with salt and cook until the onion is soft, about 8 minutes. Stir in the sage and flour. Add the cider and cook over high heat, stirring, until thickened. Add the broth and milk, cover and bring to a boil; reduce to a simmer and cook, stirring, until the potato is soft, 8 to 10 minutes.

Add the cheese to the soup and stir over medium-low heat until melted. Puree with an immersion blender or in a regular blender in batches until smooth; season with salt and pepper. 

Makes 4 servings.

This is just the most comforting soup on a cold fall day.  I have a testimonial as to just how good this soup is.  I made it for a family last month.  This wonderful lady at our church is caring for her sweet elderly father.  He had been in the hospital with pneumonia, and then after he was released, she and her husband were taking care of him at home.  I made this soup and one other for them because I knew they were really busy and worrying about dinner should be the last thing on their minds.  She told me later that her dad absolutely loved the soup.  She even wrote out a lovely thank you card in which she told me that she overheard her father telling her brother the "orange soup" was the best soup he's ever tasted in his life.  That's pretty good considering he's eaten 89 years' worth of soup!  I was very honored to know that he liked it so much.

This soup is really good in a bread bowl.  I'll share the recipe for that sometime soon.

The original recipe called for pancetta.  My sister used bacon and that was really good.  But I don't bother with the bacon when I make it.  The flavor is nice, but not really necessary and I don't mind meatless soups.

Such a pretty soup, don't you think?

So if you're looking for a great soup to include with your Thanksgiving feast, there ya go!  Tomorrow is my monthly Improv Challenge and I will be sharing a great Thanksgiving side dish involving sweet potatoes and honey.  And bonus, it won't take up any oven space on the big day.

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Avgolemono (Greek Lemon Egg Soup)

It's Day Three of The Garden's Bounty recipe series hosted by Savannah of Hammock Tracks.

Today we are sharing soup recipes.  Soup in the summer?  I know.  I get totally obsessed with soups in the winter, but hardly ever have them in the summer.  But guess what?  I have an awesome summer-friendly soup for you today.  It is super light and lemony and perfect for summertime.  It was March when I made this soup, but it was during that weird March heatwave, so it was like 84 degrees that day.

Have you ever heard of Avgolemono?  Click on that link to read all about it, but the gist of it is that it's a Greek soup made up of lemon juice and eggs.  Orzo is cooked in chicken broth, then a mixture of lemon juice and eggs is added to thicken the broth.  Meat is optional; I chose some shredded chicken breast for mine.  Topping it off with fresh dill finishes it perfectly.


Avgolemono


6 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
½ cup orzo, dry
Salt 
5 eggs
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
Fresh dill


Directions:
In a large saucepan, bring the broth to a boil.  Add the orzo and cook until tender but still al dente, about 7 minutes. Season with the salt and reduce heat to low; let simmer.


In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and lemon juice until smooth. Ladle about 1 cup of the hot broth into the egg-and-lemon mixture, whisking to combine.


Add the mixture back to the simmering saucepan. Stir just until the soup becomes opaque and thickens as the eggs cook, 1 to 2 minutes. Add chicken and taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper if necessary.  


Serve warm.


Makes 4 servings.

I know that the dill is technically the only garden produce here, but if you live in Florida, you could count the lemon too. :)  This soup is just so perfect for summertime that I had to share.

Be sure to check out all the other great soups below and come back on Friday when I will share with you a delicious summery dessert.

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Corned Beef and Cabbage Soup

St. Patrick's Day is coming up this weekend.  Are you ready?  I think it's so fun to cook according to seasons and holidays. It's a really great way to mix things up and make dinner a little bit more interesting.  That's why I was so excited when my friend, Joan of Chocolate, Chocolate, and More invited me to be a part of her St. Patrick's Day Blog Party today.  It's just seven food bloggers all getting together and posting some kind of St. Patrick's Day related recipe at the same time.

Before I get to my recipe, here's what everyone else has to share with you:

Debi at Recipes for my Boys made Colcannon and Irish Stew

Carrie at Carrie's Experimental Kitchen made An Irish Feast

Kimiko at Beachside Baker made a Shamrock Shake

Melissa at Chin Deep made Apple Bramble Cake with Bushmill's Custard

Michaela at Affair from the Heart made Irish Cream Cheesecake

Joan at Chocolate, Chocolate and More made Grasshopper Pie

I can't wait to check out all this yummy Irish and/or green food! :)

As soon as I got Joan's email, I knew what I wanted to make.  I saw a recipe for Corned Beef and Cabbage Soup in the March issue of Food Network Magazine.  It looked pretty simple and I couldn't wait to try it.  I made a few changes to the original recipe (of course!), and I think my version is even more simple.  Here's how I made it.

Corned Beef and Cabbage Soup

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion, diced

1 cup matchstick carrots

¼ tsp ground allspice

1 (15 oz.) can petite diced tomatoes, drained

3 cups low-sodium beef broth

4 cups green cabbage, chopped (about ½ small head)

½ lb. potatoes, peeled and diced

¾ cup quick-cooking barley

4 cups water

½ lb. cooked corned beef, cut into thin strips and chopped

Kosher salt

Directions:

Heat oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat.  Add the onion, carrots, and allspice and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are slightly softened, about 5 minutes.

Add the tomatoes, beef broth, cabbage, potatoes, barley, and water; cover and bring to a boil. Uncover, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the potatoes and barley are tender, about 20 minutes. Stir in the corned beef and season with salt.

Makes 6 servings.

This is one hearty soup!  I love how it is packed with four different veggies AND potatoes and barley AND the corned beef.  It's a complete meal in and of itself.  Although that didn't stop us from enjoying some freshly baked rolls with it! 

The original recipe called for pulsing the veggies in a food processor before adding them to the pot, but I don't have a full-sized food processor, so I just diced my veggies and added them that way.  Again, I highly recommend the convenience of matchstick carrots.  They are so perfect for soups.  

The original recipe said that this makes 4 servings, but I think it makes WAY more than that.  I put down 6, but it could very easily be even more than that.  It would be a great soup to make for a crowd.  Also, the barley and potatoes will soak up some of the broth when you put the leftovers in the fridge, so keep that extra 1 cup of beef broth to add to it before reheating.

This would be a great soup to make the day after St. Patrick's Day if you have made a nice corned beef roast, since it calls for cooked corned beef.  I bought a roast, and cooked it simply according to the package, then sliced it up.  The original recipe called for only  ¼ lb. of meat, but that didn't look like very much, so I doubled it.  Glad I did because it was perfect.

So if you don't have any plans for what to make on St. Patrick's Day, check out the blog posts listed above for some great recipes.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

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Barbecue Chicken Soup

I've got another great soup recipe to share with you today.  Remember how I mentioned in an earlier post how much I love soups that can be made by dumping the ingredients into a soup pot and heating it up?  They are great because they are literally hardly any more work than opening up a can, but the taste is beyond compare.  It's so easy to throw together a homemade soup.  Here's another one of these "dump and heat up" soups that I came up a few months ago.  The inspiration came from Blog is the New Black, but I ended up changing it quite a bit to suit my tastes and to make it easier.


Barbecue Chicken Soup


Ingredients:
2 cups cooked chicken breast, shredded
1 (15 oz.) can corn, drained
1 cup canned baked beans
3½ cups chicken broth
½ cup barbecue sauce
Salt, as needed
Shredded Monterey Jack cheese
Fresh cilantro, finely chopped


Directions:
Place chicken, corn, beans, broth, and barbecue sauce in a soup pot.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for a few minutes.  Taste for seasoning, adding salt if necessary.


Ladle into bowls.  Top with shredded cheese and cilantro.

Makes 4 servings.

Easy, right?  And it's the perfect little taste of summer in winter form!  I love it.  Use your favorite barbecue sauce, but make sure it's not overly sweet.  Our favorite is Sweet Baby Ray's Honey Chipotle, and it's perfect in this soup. 

Last month, I made a soup using the exact same method, but with a different flavor profile.  I had some leftover teriyaki chicken, so I used that, with some matchstick carrots instead of the corn, and teriyaki sauce instead of the barbecue sauce.  That was really good too.  

So the next time you are craving soup but don't feel like spending an hour in the kitchen, try one of these "dump and heat up" soups.  You'll probably never buy another canned soup again!

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Secret Recipe Club: Creamy Chicken & Wild Rice Soup

It's time again to reveal our picks for the Secret Recipe Club.   The Secret Recipe Club is a group of food bloggers who secretly make one of someone else's dishes and post them all on the same day at the same time.  It's really fun, choosing a recipe to make, making the recipe, then reading about everyone else's recipes.  It's a great way to "meet" other bloggers and check out some great blogs that you never knew about before.

I was very pleased to be assigned Dinners, Dishes, and Desserts this month.  I have been reading Erin's blog for quite a while now, so I was pretty familiar with it and knew I would have a ton of great recipes to choose from.  I had a really hard time narrowing it down! She has tons of drool-worthy desserts, like Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Brownies and Cookie Dough Truffles.  I bookmarked several main dish recipes too, Taco Pizza, Spicy Asian Noodles with Chicken, and Chicken Burrito Pizza.  In fact, I was so indecisive, that I ended up making two of Erin's recipes this month.  I made her Smokey Garlic Chicken Pasta, which is amazing!  My family couldn't get enough.  Even though we are having a very mild winter here in Michigan, I am still in soup mode, so I chose her Creamy Chicken Wild Rice Soup for the reveal.

Creamy Chicken & Wild Rice Soup

Ingredients:

¼ cup butter

½ large onion, chopped

1 cup matchstick carrots

½ cup flour

6 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth

3½ cups wild rice, cooked

2 cups chicken, cooked and chopped or shredded

Salt, to taste

12 oz. evaporated milk

Directions:

Melt butter in a large soup pot over medium heat.  Sauté onion and carrot in the butter until soft and tender, about 5 minutes.  Stir in flour until blended.  Slowly add broth.  Stir in rice and chicken.  Bring to boil over medium heat.  Cook for a few minutes until it starts to thicken.  Stir in milk and cook for 3-5 minutes.  Taste for seasoning and add salt if desired. 

Makes 8 servings.

I made just a few adjustments to Erin's original recipe.  I used matchstick carrots instead of chopped, just because I love the convenience of them.  I omitted the celery because we are not big fans.  I used a wild rice blend instead of just wild rice.  The blend was so much cheaper at the grocery store, and I thought the textures of the different kinds of rice would be really good.  The blend that I used contained long grain brown rice, sweet brown rice, wild rice, whole grain Wehani rice, and whole grain Black Japonica rice.  It was really tasty!

This soup is so delicious and perfect for a winter day.  I made it the weekend my mom was visiting and she loved it, and I sent some home to my sister and she enjoyed it too.  I will definitely be making this soup again.  I'm always thrilled to add a new soup to my repertoire, so thanks for the great recipe, Erin!


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Crazy Cooking Challenge: Mini Chicken Meatball Noodle Soup

It's time once again for the Crazy Cooking Challenge!  In this challenge, all the participants make and blog about the same dish each month.  Each blogger is to scour other blogs for the "ultimate" version of whatever that month's dish is.  The goal is to highlight and promote personal food blogs. This month's assigned dish was chicken noodle soup.  So we were to find the "ultimate chicken noodle soup" recipe, make it, and blog about it.

I found a recipe on Gina's Skinnytaste for Leftover Turkey Noodle Soup.  Even though her recipe called for turkey, I really liked the simplicity of it and it sounded just like what I had in mind.  So I started with that, and changed the turkey to chicken.  I felt like mixing things up a bit, so I made mini chicken meatballs instead of chunks of chicken breast.  I made mini meatballs for a soup I created last month, and they were so darn cute, I just had to make them again!  The only other thing I changed was to use spinach instead of the traditional celery.  I don't really like celery, but felt the soup still needed something green.  I've used spinach in soups before and I love it, so I went with that and it worked well.  Here's my adaptation.


Mini Chicken Meatball Noodle Soup

Ingredients:
6 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1 cup carrots, sliced
¼ large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ lb. ground chicken
2 tbsp soft bread crumbs
½ tsp Italian seasoning (Penzey’s Tuscan Sunset)
½ shallot, diced
¼ tsp salt
2 cups egg noodles
1 cup fresh spinach, torn

Directions:
Fill a large soup pot with chicken stock.  Add bay leaf, carrots, onion, and garlic and simmer 10-15 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft. 

Meanwhile, combine the ground chicken, bread crumbs, Italian seasoning, shallot, and salt.  Form into 1 tsp sized meatballs.  Add them to the soup pot one by one, so they don’t stick together.  Stir.  Increase heat to high and add egg noodles and spinach.  Cook until noodles are soft and spinach is wilted.  Taste for seasoning, adding salt if necessary.  Remove bay leaf.

Serve hot.

Makes 4 servings.

This soup was a big hit.  My 19-month-old gobbled down every little bit!  I love how simple it is and how easily and fairly quickly it can be thrown together.  Admittedly, chicken noodle soup isn't my favorite soup, mostly because I find it kind of "blah", but using mini meatballs takes it up a notch in the "interesting" department.  

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