Chicken wild rice soup and honey yeast rolls

Date: 1/15/2012

Recipe:

Soup: Ingredients:

• Approximately 7 cups water, 2 tablespoons of “better than bouillion” vegetable broth mix
• 2 cups finely chopped celery (when we have extra celery, we chop and blanch and freeze in 2 cup portions to have on hand for soups – so one of those bags went in here)
• 2 carrots, shredded
• 1 onion, chopped
• 0.5 T  dried parsley flakes
• 1 T garlic powder
• 0.5 T teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
• 3 cups cooked wild rice
• 1 pound cooked chicken thighs, cubed

• In a large saucepan, add everything up to the butter. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 30 minutes. (We did this part while cooking the wild rice)
• In Dutch oven, melt butter; stir in flour until smooth. Gradually whisk in broth mixture. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Add mushroom soup, rice and chicken; heat through. 

Adapted from:  http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Chicken-Wild-Rice-Soup

Rolls: http://annies-eats.com/2008/10/29/honey-yeast-rolls/

Modifications: The soup recipe was pretty heavily modified, which is why I posted what we did. I followed all instructions on the rolls, but it didn’t take 2 hours for my dough to double.

Time to table: Soup took about an hour total, because the wild rice takes 45 minutes to cook – but since we combined that with the first step of the soup (simmering for 30 minutes) it wasn’t so bad. Rolls take about 3 hours including all rising time, maybe 30 minutes of active prep time total.

Servings: The 3 of us ate this for dinner, and then froze another dinner portion for all of us. There was enough after that still for one lunch and one toddler dinner. Probably would feed 6 adults. The rolls make 10-12.

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Annie: Love

Notes: I feel like we need a special category for these rare (but happened twice in a week!) triple LOVE meals. So I am making one, and calling it “triple love” (some are amended from my feelings on a meal during the first trimester of pregnancy. Another note – apparently we mostly love soup). I was VERY skeptical that this would live up to restaurant quality soup, but wow, it definitely did! This soup was absolutely delicious, and paired with fresh baked rolls? Can’t get much better than that on a cold January night! When Annie even chooses to eat the soup after eating an entire roll, you know it’s good. She eats so much better on weekends it’s ridiculous – the big difference being that we don’t give her snacks in the afternoon on weekends – shockingly that results in her actually eating dinner! Anyway, this meal was definitely a winner all around. Kind of surprising for us given the lack of cheese and cream involved!