Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

This recipe is from Lyn Schafer at Classic Floral Design in Waukee.  She was gracious enough to make 18 gallons of this soup to share with the community to help celebrate our annual Winterfest celebration.  It was so good, I needed to make some for myself.  The recipe has lots of different steps so it did take me a while to get it put together the first time but I always allow double time to make something on my first try.  I added some helpful tips at the bottom in hopes that your first attempt won't be as disorganized as mine.  Thanks for the soup, Lyn!

Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

1 box Uncle Ben's wild rice mix
8 oz. cream cheese cubed
1 can evaporated milk
2 to 4 chicken breasts, cooked and cubed or shredded
2- 15 oz. cans chicken broth
1 cup chopped carrots (into bite-sized pieces)
1/4 onion - chopped

Make rice per box instructions. While rice is cooking, chop onions and carrots.  Saute onion in small amount of oil until tender.  Add carrots to onion and saute for about 5 minutes, stirring every few minutes so they don't burn. Boil, bake or grill chicken (however you choose to cook the chicken).  Combine all ingredients into crockpot or large pot.  As mixture thickens, you may need to add some milk to thin it out.

Helpful Tips:
This recipe will require 4 different cooking pots/pans.  I doubled the recipe and used a 2 quart saucepan for the rice, 12 inch skillet for onions and carrots, 5 quart stockpot for boiling chicken (you could also use leftover grilled or baked chicken) and a large oval crockpot for the soup.  With the doubled recipe, the soup barely fit in the crockpot.  If you make a single batch, it will fit in a 5 quart stockpot on the stove. 

If you are using a crockpot, you can put the broth and cream cheese in first to start melting the cream cheese.  You will need to stir and smash the cream cheese against the side to get it all mixed in so it may be easier to get it started melting before adding other ingredients.

Alternate way to do the chicken and broth:  You can get bone-in chicken and add 8 cups water when boiling and then use the broth you've made for your chicken broth.  This will not work for boneless skinless chicken because you won't get the flavor you need. 

I am not a big fan of onions but this was fine. I probably could have used more onion and I still would have liked it.

A double batch makes a huge amount of soup so I hope it freezes OK.  I'll update on how well it comes out of the freezer.





If you try it, let me know how you like it.

Homemade Pudding

My mom mentioned the other day that her mom used to make cornstarch pudding so I decided to try it.  Wow!  It is great and I know exactly what is in it so I feel better about eating it.  Surprisingly, vanilla pudding does not need to be yellow - that is just the artificial coloring added to the store bought pudding.  It's amazing what we take for granted when we buy pre-made mixes.  I used a recipe from allrecipes.com however I changed it as I made it.  Here is my recipe:

Flour Girl's Pudding Recipe

2 cups milk
1/4 cup sugar
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
1/4 tsp. salt
1 /2 tsp. cinnamon (optional)
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. butter

Mix all dry ingredients in a stainless steel saucepan (including cinnamon if you want).  Add the milk and whisk until dry ingredients are dissolved.  It is very important that you dissolve cornstarch into cold liquid. If you heat the milk first, you get lumpy pudding. Heat and stir until mixture is thickened but not boiling.  To test thickness, dip a metal spoon into the pudding and if it sticks nicely and doesn't slide off, it's done.  Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla extract.  I always use real butter.  Pour into serving bowls.  Enjoy warm or chilled.

Next time I will try adding some cocoa to the dry ingredients to make chocolate pudding.  If you try adding anything dry like cocoa, make sure you add it at the beginning or it won't mix in well later.  If you make this, I'd love to hear what variations you do.

For everyone looking for a bargain, making the pudding mix from scratch costs about 20 cents (not counting the cost of the milk).

Grated Cheese Revelation

I've started to grate my own cheese again. I don't remember when bags of pre-grated cheese became popular - the 90s? I remember thinking how cool it was that I no longer had to grate my own cheese - imagine the time I would save shredding and washing that grater! Then I got a cheese grater from IKEA this summer. I reasoned that, if the cheese could be grated into an enclosed container, maybe grating wouldn't be so bad. Seriously, I can't believe how lazy I am sometimes.

What I didn't realize was how much better the cheese tastes. What was I thinking all these years buying bags of grated cheese? Last night, I made some tortillas with pureed black beans, tomatoes, shredded mozzarella and some leftover steak and I could really tell the difference with the cheese. (thanks to my friend, Kari, for the tortilla and black beans idea - we eat it all the time). Oh, and in case you are wondering, I got some nice white flour tortillas at the store - I have not mastered making my own tortillas yet and I love the processed white tortillas from the store.

What does pre-grated cheese have in it that might affect the taste? Cellulose to prevent caking and natamycin, "a natural mold inhibitor." Or maybe the difference is that it wasn't grated a few minutes before eating.

Homemade Caramel Corn

Our newest experiment is to make our own caramel corn. We always make our own popcorn on the stove but my husband took it a step further and tried making caramel corn. It was delicious when he made it - I am still trying to get this one right.

If you don't normally make your own popcorn, just try straight popcorn first. Then you can move on to caramel corn. Microwave popcorn doesn't count. I use a Whirley Pop on the stove. Making it yourself is so much cheaper and it has to be healthier when you control everything that goes into it. After I tasted popcorn made on the stove again (after several decades of eating microwave popcorn), I will never eat microwave popcorn again. I'm not really sure that my caramel corn recipe is the best and there are lots of other recipes on the internet so you can take your pick. Since we are trying to cut back on sugar, I think straight popcorn with a little salt is just fine for us but the caramel corn is a nice treat.

If you still want to stick to microwave popcorn, just google the words
"microwave popcorn" dangerous -- you might change your mind.

Egg McMuffins

Tonight we had the best egg sandwiches or Egg McMuffins as we call them. Egg McMuffin sounds so much better - good job marketing, McDonalds.

Why were the sandwiches so good? I used farm fresh eggs and homemade buns. It made all the difference. We've done them with English muffins and sandwiches rounds and they are good but the homemade buns put them over the top - the fresh flour really does make a difference. Havarti cheese and ham make it complete. My son normally will not eat eggs but he will eat egg sandwiches. Egg sandwiches might need to become a once a week meal here.

If you try this at home, just crack all your eggs into one bowl, add a little water and beat. Then pour the whole thing in a big skillet and cook like an omelet. Add cheese and ham at the end. When it's done, slide the whole giant egg onto a plate and cut into squares the size of your bread. This is much easier than trying to cook individual eggs unless you have a pan the right size. We used 8 eggs tonight - the eggs are great leftover too. If you aren't into the homemade buns yet, just use English muffins - it is too much bread for me so I usually make mine open-faced and just use half a muffin. I don't really know if the farm fresh eggs made them better. I mostly like the idea that I am eating eggs from a local farm. Please post if you try making egg sandwiches and how they turned out.

A note on the hamburger buns I tried a few days ago... they have taken on a life of their own. We now use them for any type of sandwiches instead of sliced bread. They just seem more appealing than the sliced bread. They are just a little more work but seem to worth the effort.

Farmer's Market Finds

For today we have Farmer's Market Stir Fry. Take whatever you got at the farmer's market and throw it in the pan. I used zucchini, eggplant, okra and tomatoes. Honestly, the eggplant wasn't worth the effort. I roasted the eggplant in the oven first. I think it would have been just fine without the eggplant but it's always good to try new things. When cooking, season however you want. Sprinkle the stir-fry with some parmigiano reggiano or just parmesan cheese at the table.

We also got farm fresh eggs at the farmer's market. My daughter never eats eggs but when she saw the brown farm eggs, she was intrigued so she was eager to try them. I made into an omelet with Harvarti cheese. She loved it! Hooray! One more healthy food she will eat! This is our first time buying farm fresh eggs. I think we'll need to keep buying them.

Next week we'll make caramel corn from scratch.