Chicken Cordon Bleu Soup

Been wanting to try this ever since I found it on LDS Living. I sent it to Taya to try and their family loved it. Made it last night and Grumpy says it's a keeper.
Would easily feed 8.

• 1/2 C. Butter
• 2-3 Garlic cloves, minced
• 1 Onion, chopped
• 1/2 C. Flour
• 5 C. Milk (skim is fine, I used half cream)
• 1 Qt. Chicken stock
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 6 Medium baked potatoes, baked and still warm if possible. ( I would use potato pearls or potato flakes in the interest of time and texture)
• 2 C. Swiss cheese, shredded
• 2 C. Chicken, cooked and shredded (rotisserie would be awesome) Even better would be chicken pieces, bitesize and pan sauteed in butter.
• 2 C. Ham, diced (I used sliced lunch ham I needed to use up. I would love a Costco ham steak diced for a chunkier texture though)
• Parsley flakes (a few just for fun)

In a mixing bowl pour about 2 cups of the milk. Add the flour little at a time stirring constantly with a whisk. When all the flour is in, add about a teaspoon of salt and pepper if you like it. Set aside.

In a large stock pot, melt the butter. Add the garlic and onion and let cook until nice and browned (caramelized). Stir frequently so there's no burning. Add half the chicken stock and heat through. Pour in the flour mixture stirring constantly to avoid lumps. When the mixture is all in, allow the pot to come to a boil. Once there, add the rest of the chicken stock and milk. Allow to heat through stirring occasionally so avoid burning on the bottom. Allow to return to a simmer and soup will thicken. If you like a really thick chowder type soup it should be there. If you want it a bit thinner, add more chicken stock or water. If it isn't thick enough for you, add a bit more flour & milk mixture, but you must make sure the soup comes to a simmer or you will taste the flour.

Now the soup is heated through and is just at a low boil, or simmer. Turn the heat down to medium low and add the flesh of the baked potatoes. If you are using a potato flake product, add the flakes and enough milk or water to make the mixture more soup like. Once you have the consistency the way you like it, throw a few parsley flakes in for color, add your chicken, ham, and cheese. Allow to simmer for about 20 more minutes, stirring occasionally. Great served with garlic toast, or crackers. A side salad would be excellent and it's a fine dinner.

To reheat for leftovers, you may have to thin with milk, chicken stock or water.

Yummy on these cold days we're having right now.

Chicken Poblano Soup

Found this wonderful soup recipe on the LDS Living (Magazine) site. They do a contest every year for the best soup recipe and this year's winner is this tasty soup by Wendy Stock from New Mexico. I made the recipe as she wrote it and have put my ideas in as well.

Chicken Poblano Soup

The advance prep ingredients:
1 Roasted Chicken (I used 3 boneless, skinless breasts)
3 Poblano peppers, veined, seeded, and diced
2 cups cooked rice (I put a little chicken bouillon in with the water in my rice cooker)



Roasting the chiles in the oven on Broil-Hi (top rack about 4-6 inches from the top element). Turn the chiles over to ensure a good blistering on all sides. After roasting, pull the foil around to completely enclose and let sit for about an hour. This sweats the skins loose. I cut around the tops and pulled out the seed pod and veins. Then I hold the chile under cold running water and remove the blackened skins. Now they are ready for dicing. You can also roast them on a BBQ or gas stove burner. Just check the internet for how to roast chile peppers. These chiles are very mild. I will probably add in some green chiles for some more hot in the future. I like Hatch chiles too. The Orange Patch in Mesa gets them in once a year, already roasted and ready to skin. They freeze well and are wonderful.





I had chicken breasts, so I put them in the oven for 45 minutes covered and then took the foil off for 30 minutes so they would brown a little. Left-over Lipton chicken (I make that for dinner on Sundays often) would work well here, or even chicken bottled in the pantry. I'm going to try a rotisserie chicken next time.



The rice is in the rice cooker, and I assembled the rest of the ingredients. (not all pictured) Once the chicken, chiles and rice were done, the rest went pretty fast.

In a large saucepan, or a medium stock pot combine:

1/4 C. Olive Oil
1/2 t. Cumin
1/2 t. Thyme
1 T. Chicken Bouillon
salt and pepper to taste
Mix well.
Add:
1/2 Bunch Cilantro (pull off the leaves and discard the stems). Chop as fine as you like.
2 Cloves Garlic (minced)
1 Medium Onion (diced)
2 C. Carrots (diced or chopped) About 2 carrots depending on size.
The diced poblano chiles

Place pan over medium heat.
Stir often and cook until onions begin to carmelize and the carrots are tender.
(I had to add a tiny bit of water to allow the veggies to steam a little and not burn)



Next add:
3 Quarts Chicken Broth (or Chicken Stock)
1/4 C. Butter (1/2 a stick)
1/4 C. Flour
I mixed the flour with a little of the chicken broth so it wouldn't lump. You could also use cornstarch in place of the flour.
Stir all together.

With two forks pull the chicken into bite-size pieces and add to the soup.

Last, stir in:
2 C. Cooked Rice
1 sm. Bag Frozen Corn

The little tortilla strips available at most stores now would be good garnish. I will most likely use at least 1 more quart of chicken stock for a more brothy soup. So good. Grumpy and I had this last night and it was fabulous.

The Best Potato Soup Ever!

One of the family favs, I need to give Aunt Leslee credit. Her home is forever open to guests, she is the ultimate hostess. There is always something on the stove or in the fridge for whoever is there and is hungry. She made a big batch of this wonderful soup when we were up there visiting one fall and I had to call her later for this soup recipe. She said she got it from a church cookbook, but had a few alterations all her own. I bought the book and copied down her way. I just made a few gallons of it for Lacy's wedding and everyone seemed to like it, so here is the recipe tried and true.

12 medium potatoes
1 C. chopped onion
1/4 C. butter or margarine
2 C. cream
3 C. milk
1 T. salt
2 C. grated cheddar cheese
4 green onions, finely sliced
1 pound bacon, fried crisp, drained and crumbled
Salt and Pepper to taste

Peel and quarter potatoes and place in a large pot. Fill pot with water just to cover potatoes. Put on lid; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 30 minutes or until tender. Saute chopped onions and butter or margarine until onions are tender and browned. Remove potatoes from heat and drain. Add cream and stir together. Mash potatoes until mixture is smooth. Stir in milk, salt and onion/butter mixture. Return pot to stove and simmer over low heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Watch carefully to avoid scorching. Turn down heat if necessary. Use cheese, green onion and bacon for topping each bowl as it is served. Makes about 12 cups.

Leslee's way:
just peel a couple of potatoes and saute with the onion and butter until tender. Make a couple of packages of the mashed potato flakes (of course with more water or milk for a soup consistency) in a large pot. Add chunky potatoes/onion/butter mixture to pot and add the rest of the ingredients. more cream=thicker soup. more water = thinner soup. I think Leslee puts the green onions, and the bacon into the soup. Garnish with cheese, sour cream, more bacon crumbles, whatever. The bacon bits from Hormel/costco are just fine.

Sherry's speedy for a large crowd way:
Get 1 package (per Gallon of soup you are making) Ore-Ida diced (hash browns) frozen potatoes. NOT the O'Brian kind, just plain. Saute the onions in the butter until tender. Add a little more butter to the pan and saute the hashbrowns just a tad. Not to full browned state, just tender. Then follow the rest of Leslee's way and the soup is delicious and pretty quick. When boiling the water for the potato flakes, you can substitute chicken broth for more flavor.

Corn & Potato Chowder...

Ingredients:

2-3 cans sweet cream corn
1 yellow onion chopped
1 clove minced garlic
1 cube butter (1/2 cup)
1 large carrot
2 cups potato flakes
4-6 cups milk
2-3 cups chicken broth
3-4 TBLS parsley flakes
1 jar Hormel "REAL" bacon bits (or crumbled)
Salt & pepper to taste















Melt your butter in a non-stick frying pan and add in your chopped onions and minced garlic. Then take a potato peeler and with short strokes peel the carrot into the mixture and saute all of it together. Add your parsley to the mixture.

Transfer this mixture to a stock pot and turn the heat to high. Add your chicken broth and milk and bring to a boil. When boiling turn down to low heat and add in your potato flakes and stir well. Bring the soup to the consistency that you wish by using milk to thin out or a few more potato flakes to thicken. When the consistency is of your liking then add your corn and then the jar of bacon bits or crumbled bacon last.


Stir well and serve.

I served with garnish of cheese croutons and it was yummy!!!
















Side note: You can choose to use real potatoes in the soup rather than the flakes. If this is your choice then use 4-6 medium potatoes cubed, and saute in with the onions, garlic, carrots and parsley. Saute until the potatoes are tender.
Once tender transfer to stock pot and add the chicken broth the recipe calls for. Then you'll need to make a white sauce to use for the soup base. To do this, in a medium mixing bowl whisk together 4 cups of milk and 3/4 cup flour and blend well. Add to stock pot and continue on with the above directions from there. Either way it is yummy!

Mom's Broccoli Cheese Soup...

This is my all time favorite soup!

Ingredients:
1 large yellow onion chopped
1 clove minced garlic
1 medium head broccoli crown chopped
1 cube butter (1/2 cup)
4 cups chicken stock
5 cups milk
3/4 cup flour
1 t dry mustard
8 oz brick of cream cheese
4 cups mild shredded cheddar cheese (more or less as you choose)

Saute chopped onion, clove of garlic and broccoli in the cube of melted butter. When tender, transfer to an 8qt stock pot and add 4 cups chicken stock. In a medium mixing bowl whisk together 4 cups of milk, 3/4 cup flour and the dry mustard and blend well. Add to stock pot. In another mixing bowl whisk together 8oz cream cheese and 1 cup of milk. Set aside.

Bring to a boil to thicken the mixture to the desired consistency, to make thicker add milk or cream, and to thin out add water or chicken broth. Once it starts to boil reduce the heat. When mixture is thickened to desired consistency add in the shredded cheddar cheese and the cream cheese mixture. Keep at medium heat until all of the cheeses are melted in. Add salt & pepper to taste.

Garnish ideas: Sprinkle some shredded cheese and green onion on top... this soup goes great with Mom's homemade bread too!!! Or crackers or rolls...

Another Rocket Soup

Nana was the best at improvising. She could and did change and evolve her recipes. We may think we have her recipe for something, but chances are someone else who has the same recipe will have something different. Thus it is with her famous Rocket Soup. When I was pregnant with my twins, I made this is Utah for my friends the Grampps. Carter ate a bowl and said, “Wow. This should be called rocket soup. It is really hot!” Apparently I had overdone the pepper a bit. Nana thought that was too funny and found a way to make it rocket with flavor instead of just pepper. We all have our little twist to this wonderful family recipe, so take this one, and Sydney's (the first post on this blog) and hopefully Scott's (when he posts it) and do your thing with it.
One thing is for sure, it hits the spot on a cold day and is pretty inexpensive if you need to feed the multitudes. Serve it with rolls, bread (homemade is the best) and butter, or even just crackers. It is a great meal to take in to someone who needs a little love too.

Makes more than a gallon of soup. 

Brown in skillet:

1 lb. Lean hamburger

2 sm. cloves garlic, minced

Put into 8qt. stock pot, set aside.

In same skillet saute:

1 lg. onion, chopped

3 med. carrots, sliced

1/4 c. fresh Italian parsley, coarsely chopped

1 lb. small red potatoes, quartered (about 3 cups)

Add a little olive oil if needed. When veggies are just tender add to stock pot.

Place stock pot on medium heat and add:

2 qts. Water

or a combination of beef stock, V-8 juice (can be the spicy kind if more zing is desired) and water.

Quantity is personal as some like thicker soup and some like more broth. Can be stretched to feed more if needed.

2 T. brown lentils (or dried peas, or yellow lentils)

2 T. pearled barley (or handful of rice if you have it)

2 T. red quineoa (sneaky way to add some nutrition)

2 T. Knorr beef flavor base (or boullion cubes for 1 qt.)

2 28 oz. cans diced tomatoes 

(if fresh tomatoes are used, blanch skins off, dice - about 3 cups) Simmer in skillet before adding to stockpot so they are a little stewed.

1 7  3/4 oz. can El Pato sauce*  (or spicy V-8)

1 8 oz. can tomato sauce

1/2 c. frozen corn

1/2 c. frozen peas  

Optional: I like to throw in a handful of some kind of noodle. Sometimes it’s egg noodles with a smidge of Alpha bet noodles. Many varieties to choose from. Not too many - keep it small.

Salt and pepper to taste and simmer about 30 minutes, or until lentils and barley are tender.

*Puts the rocket in the soup. Substitute another tomato sauce here if there are tender palettes or tummies.

Nana's Rocket Soup

Click on the recipe below to access a readable pdf version.

Cooler weather is coming! In our family that means "Soup on Sunday's". Nana's Rocket Soup has always been one of our favorites. There is nothing like it to warm you on a cold day or kick that sinus headache in the behind.