Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Everybody's Favorite Soup, Part Two

This was yummy.




Everybody’s Favorite Soup

1 T canola oil
1 med. sweet onion, chopped
½ - 1 bunch celery, chopped
¼ - ½ C. dried mushrooms, reconstituted and chopped
2 med. carrots, chopped
Salt & pepper
2 T. flour
5 C. ? chicken broth (or water + chicken base)
1 - 2 C. spinach leaves
2 C. precooked, shredded chicken with broth (or shredded rotisserie chicken)

Heat oil in a big heavy pot.
Cook onions, celery, mushrooms, and carrot until soft. Season.
Sprinkle flour over veg; cook 5 min.
Add broth; cook 10 min.
Blend in pot with immersion blender.
Add spinach; cook 3 min.
Blend again, leaving spinach flecks.
Add shredded chicken with broth; heat through.
Serve over cottage cheese, or with shredded cheese on top.


I remembered to cook just chicken bones with no veggies in the crockpot for the broth. I like to do this so I can just strain out the chicken bones and pour the stock from the gravy separator. The veggies stay in the finished soup for nutrition and thickening. The first time I made this, I blended the spinach in with the other veggies, but it turned out a bit too greenish for my taste! It is hard to tell from the picture, but it has bits of orange carrot with the green spinach in yellowish soup. Doing it it two steps makes the soup prettier.

When I was a kid, my mother ate tomato soup with cottage cheese in it. I thought that was really weird, until I grew up and tried it. Yum. Now I put a scoop at the bottom of all my soup bowls. It adds this great hot/cold/constantly changing in a melty way element to the soup eating experience. And if you can remember the last time you had a bowl of Campbell's Chicken Noodle (booorinnng!), you know that is a good thing.

You don't need cottage cheese AND grated cheese; I just added it for... um, the photo... yeah, that's why...