Dinner: Chicken, Mushrooms and WIld Rice Soup

We LOVE a good soup.  Soon after we got married DAve picked up this awesome soup cookbook.  I can't remember where he bought it, but it was like $5.99, and it rocks!  Our first winter in Germany we started a tradition of cooking a new soup every week.  Thankfully Dave is not a meat and potatoes dude (I mean he likes meat and potatoes, but does not have to eat it to feel like he has had a meal), and loves trying new things.  At this point we have a good selection of soups that we love, so we often look forward to winter.  In fact just today I was asking HC what she wanted to eat on her birthday and she choose scones from breakfast, veggie pita pizza for lunch and butternut squash soup for dinner.  Love it!  Have I ever shared my butternut squash soup recipe?  It pretty much rocks.  My wonderful neighbor graciously gave me hers which includes making your own stock from the seeds and goo of the butternut, and then the best part...topping it with homemade croutons from french bread and brown sugar and cinnamon.  HELLO!

But I am not talking about that soup today.  This Chicken, Mushroom and Wild Rice soup recipe I found in Southern Living, and it was pretty yummy.  I made my own broth which is so easy.  I actually made Chicken Soup and Matzo balls several times in the fall, so I feel like I mastered it a bit.  The day before I want to eat the soup, I throw the chicken in the dutch oven with a quartered onion, a couple carrots and a couple stalks of celery.  And I cook it for several hours adding some krazy salt every now and then.  Once it has cooked for a while I take out the bird and remove all the meat, saving some for other purposes and returning some back to the soup.  I also remove the celery, onion and carrots, and throw the soup into the fridge.  My mom always said soup is better the second day, so I believe her.  The next day I throw the soup into the crock pot with some sliced carrots and celery and let it cook all day.  I taste it often so that I can add salt and pepper and make sure it is becoming yumm-o.  Then when it gets close to dinner time I add noodles or matzo balls or whatever.  Voila.

Sometimes I just throw the chicken into the crock pot and then I will use the chicken for something and freeze the broth for another day.  Homemade broth is awesome and then you don't have to worry about sodium, msg or bpa (which apparently is in cans as well as plastics).