No More Rice!

For living with a man who proclaims to not like rice, Lance puts up with a lot of rice. I blame it on my Asian tendencies, but there are times in my life that I just want rice! While I don't necessarily think that Chicken and Wild Rice soup necessarily counts as Asian cuisine ... it does count towards Lance's rice quota. This soup is really good. It would be really good with homemade bread on a snowy Saturday. Instead, I made it two weeks ago when it was 80 degrees outside. What can I say even at non-soup times!



Chicken and Wild Rice Soup
Ingredients
1/2 cup uncooked wild rice
3 tablespoons butter
1 onion, chopped
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped carrots
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
salt and pepper to taste + 1 chicken bouillon cube
1 (10.75 ounce) can chicken broth
2 cups milk
2 cups diced chicken

Directions
1.Prepare rice according to package directions.
2.Melt the butter or margarine in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion, celery, and carrots and saute for 5 to 10 minutes, or until almost tender.
3.Stir in the flour and salt and pepper to taste. Add the broth and milk and stir until soup thickens.
4.Add the rice and the chicken and allow to heat through, about 10 minutes.

In the original recipe it did not call for carrots or a chicken bouillon cube. However, I did read in a couple of places where if you are using straight-up wild rice and not a seasoning mix like Uncle Bens, the soup would be in need of salt - hence the chicken bouillon cube. Generally speaking, I am not a fan of chicken bouillon cubes. They are poor substitutes for real chicken broth. Anyway, don't get me started - if you wonder why your soups taste like poo, it's because you are using poo ingredients like chicken bouillon cubes - they are not a good sub for chicken broth! But in this case, they give a nice salt kick, which is the only thing you can count on chicken bouillon for. And me being me, added more vegetables. Because no one ever dies from eating too many vegetables. I think this soup would be really nice with mushrooms too.