SOUPer Bowl

So, the title is a bit misleading because this activity was on Saturday night, but I had to give a shout out for the Saints.

And now...the other SOUPer story of the weekend...

In an effort to contribute to the blog, Graham and I decided to tackle the wonderfully delicious world of soup! Despite good intentions, however, we completely forgot to document the latest food adventure. Instead, I am going to post pictures of Memphis' latest snow day and simple write about our scrumptious cheesy chicken chowder.

Back in December, I purchased a cookbook entitled Taste of Home's Big Book of Soups (http://www.amazon.com/Taste-Homes-Big-Book-Soup/dp/0898214602/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265681535&sr=1-2). I am a huge soup fan, and luckily, G recognizes the value of a good bowl of yummy goodness as well. Of course, being such fans of soup presented a problem when perusing the cookbook...too many choices. The goal was to make something hearty, and I was relegated with the task of making the ultimate decision. Naturally, the overwhelming number of options forced me to combine recipes, but alas, isn't that what cooking is all about? You definitely cannot do that with baking, as those of you who have heard my "all-purpose flour versus confectioner's sugar in cookies" story well know.

I opted to combine the Wild Rice and Ham Chowder with the Cheesy Chicken Chowder recipe (see below)
Wild Rice and Ham requires:
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup butter
6 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
4 cups chicken broth
1.5 cups cubed peeled potatoes
1/2 cup chopped carrots
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspon ground nutmeg
3 cups cooked wild rice
2.5 cups cubed fully cooked ham
2 cups half and half cream
1 can whole kernel corn, drained
minced fresh parsley


Cheesy Chicken Chowder requires:
3 cups chicken broth
2 cups diced peeled potatoes
1 cup diced carrots
1 cup died celery
1/2 cup diced onion
1.5 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup flour
2 cups milk
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
2 cups diced cooked chicken

Fortunately, I was house/dogsitting for my parents this past weekend, meaning that most of our ingredients were already available. For the things we needed, we headed to good ole Schnuck's ("sketchy Schnuck's" to Marion). Once we had assembled all our ingredients back at the ranch, we settled in. We busted out a wonderfully aged $6 cabernet (ha!) and cranked up the Motown. Graham took care of the chicken, garlic, and onions in our big soup pot while I peeled potatoes and made our wild rice. He then chopped the potatoes and added them to the pot as well. I think it was at this point that we added our 48 oz of chicken broth and about 4 bags of various frozen veggies. I thought the sliced yellow/green/red pepper medley was a great addition because it added some color. I also chopped a bunch of carrots to add to the mix. We allowed our pot to simmer until the veggies were tender. During this period of time, I chopped our celery and parsley and made the cream portion of our chowder-about 3 cups of whole milk, butter, flour, and a packet of shredded cheddar cheese melted in a sauce pan. The cheesiness, celery, parsley, and rice were added to the big soup pot for the last 10 minutes of cooking or so. I would be more exact, but I just am not sure! We basically cooked to desired tenderness and added spices to our desired taste. We added extra liquid (48 oz of chicken broth instead of the called-for 3-4 cups) because we were concerned about the vegetables absorbing a significant portion of the liquid.

I guess that's about it! I heated some bread in the oven, but if I had not already had a loaf (thanks, Mom!), we would have made some corn bread...yum! We probably didn't eat our dinner until about 9:30 or 10 (headed to the grocery store at about 7:30), and we have lots of leftovers. I had planned to bake cookies, but we were way too stuffed. The night ended with some episodes of True Blood and catering to the lovely Sophie and Captain

And...one more snow day photo! I apologize for the layout of this post, but I'm still trying to figure out how this blog thing works haha. This particular photo is from last weekend's snow day (January 29, 2010)!