Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

It's been a veritable cold snap here! On Sunday, the temperature reached the mid-to-high 90s and the humidity was at least 80 percent. Today it's around 83. To celebrate the onset of autumn (yeah, right), I'm gracing the blog with my recipe for chicken and wild rice soup.

This soup is amazing. Filling and fabulous. You'll never eat soup out of a can or from That-Bread-Place-That-Sounds-Like-A-Heavy-Metal-Band-Except-It's-Missing-A-T restaurant again.

Here's the lineup (minus chicken stock, butter, and flour, because I forgot those, and there wasn't much room for them in the picture anyway.

Chop carrots, onion, celery, and mushrooms. I like my soups hearty.















Saute the veggies in enough olive oil to coat. When the veggies get wilted and sauteed, add in an equal amount of butter and flour, to make a roux.

A roux is used as a thickener. I've heard stories about lumy sauces when using a roux, but honestly? Never had it happen to me before.

Allow the butter and flour to cook into a paste for a minute. This will cook out the "raw" taste of the flour.

However, on the flip side, you don't want to let it cook too long. The longer you cook a roux, the less thickening power it will have.

Once the roux has cooked, you can add in your liquid. I like to use chicken stock, but you could use vegetable stock or water if you wanted.

Then I add a little milk.

Do yourself a favor. Do not make creamy soups with skim milk. I've tried it. Skim milk has no fat. You might as well add water. Use at least 2 percent milk when making cream soups or sauces.

Next comes the wild rice. I use a boxed mix because it's premeasured in just the right amount, and I also like to throw in the seasoning packet. This is a mushroom and chicken flavor.

Funny story about Uncle Ben's rice. We were playing Trivial Pursuit one night and one of the questions was about the big clock in London. My husband said, "You mean, Uncle Ben?"

No, honey. Big Ben and Uncle Ben are two different things.

Anyway. Stir the rice to make sure it doesn't stick. Let everything boil to cook the rice. Stir occassionally to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

In the meantime, cube up your chicken. I bought two chicken breasts for this recipe, but they must have come from frankenchickens. They were more than 1 1 /4 pounds altogether. I ended up using one and a half breasts, and put the other half in the freezer for something else.

Add your chicken in. If your soup's looking a little dry, add some more liquid (milk or broth.)

When your chicken and rice are both cooked, so is your soup. Right at the very end I like to splash in some half and half (you could do cream if you're feeling naughty.)

Sprinkle some parsley and maybe some paprika on top for color. This soup would be tasty by itself, better with biscuits or rolls, and heavenly in a bread bowl. You choose. All I know is that I'm going back for seconds.

Recipe: Chicken and Wild Rice Soup
1 lb. box mushrooms (any kind; I used white button today but any type of mushroom would be fine)
2 stalks celery
1 small onion
4 carrots
olive oil, for sauteing

4 tbsp. butter
4 tbsp. flour

32 oz. chicken stock
2 c. milk

7 oz. Uncle Ben's Long Grain Wild Rice with seasoning

1 lb. chicken, cubed

1/2 c. half and half
parsley, for garnish

Chop vegetables and saute in olive oil until cooked through.

Add butter and flour to make a roux. Stir roux and allow to cook for a minute.

Gently stir in chicken stock and milk.

Add wild rice mix, including seasoning. Allow soup to simmer and allow rice to cook.

Add chicken breasts.

When rice and chicken are fully cooked, the soup is done. Add half and half right before serving and garnish with parsley.

Whisky-Marinated Steak

A few weeks ago, we went out to eat at a local restaurant. In the mood for red meat, I ordered the whisky marinated steak. It was amazing. Even though it came out a little more done than I had ordered, it was still tender and extermely juicy. It was so good that I wanted to try to recreate it.

And what better effort could be spent on my newly-acquired, grass-fed strip steaks?

The recipe starts out with whiskey. So there's no way this steak is going to be bad.

Chase...I mean, combine the whisky with some pineapple juice.

Add a couple healthy scoops of brown sugar.

Mince some garlic and onion and toss that in, too.

Here's what it looks like so far. The layers are kind of fun, don't you think?

Pour what you've got so far into a plastic bag, along with your steaks.

Now that your measuring cup is empty, pour in some soy.

Add some liquid smoke. Try not to let it touch your hands...you'll be washing your hands for a while to get the smell off if it soaks in. It's strong stuff (I guess the word "concentrated" on the front would be a good clue on that, huh?)

Finally, roughly crush some peppercorns.

Let everything marinate overnight. The flavors should come together and lend some great flavor to the steaks. I can't wait!

Bring your steaks to room temperature. While they're resting, it's a good time to work on any side dishes you may be having.

Toss your steaks on the grill. The traditional rule is 8-10 minutes per 1 inch of meat for a rare steak (so 4-5 minutes per side). You're supposed to subtract 30% of that cooking time when using grass-fed meat.



We actually tried grilling it (over medium heat) for 3 minutes--which turned out to be too short, and it went back on for the full cooking time.

Here the steaks are, resting. Resting the meat after cooking allows the juices to redistribute in the meat, resulting in a more juicy piece of meat.

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So, the verdict. I'm going to have to say that I prefer corn-fed beef. But that's probably because I've been spoiled with fatty, well-marbled beef for years. (The white fat you see marbled throughout steaks at the grocery store is saturated fat, created from a corn-heavy diet.) The difference was definitely interesting. When you grill a steak from the grocery store, most of the flavor comes from the fat, not the meat. On the flip side, grass-fed meat is quite lean, and the flavor comes from the meat.

These steaks definitely had a meatier flavor. It's hard to describe--grassy? Irony? It was definitely different than any meat I had had before. The grass-fed beef was chewier than I was used to also, and the first couple bites resulted in long periods of chewing because I cut the pieces too large.

The marinade helped the steaks stay moist, and they were delicous rare pieces of beef. I would love to experiment with this product more in the future!

Recipe: Whisky-Marinated Steak

2-4 New York strip steaks (marinade makes plenty for 4 steaks)

1/4 c. bourbon whisky

1/4 c. pineapple juice

1/2 c. brown sugar

1/2 c. chopped onion

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 c. soy sauce

2 tbsp. liquid smoke

1 tsp. roughly crushed peppercorns

Combine all ingredients. Marinate steaks 8 hours or overnight.

Grill over medium heat, 4-5 minutes a side.

Try this recipe today. Because there's nothing wrong with getting the booze out on Monday.

My Favorite Thing This Week

My favorite thing this week is pie! Namely, pie from the Pie Peddler.

The Pie Peddler is a local woman who bakes fruit pies and sells them at the farmer's market every Saturday. These pies are to die for. But it's the crust that really makes these pies. The crust is rich, flaky, and just has something that other crusts don't. I wonder if she uses lard. It's entirely possible, they're so good.

She makes normal sized pies and mini pies. The normal sized pies come in all sorts of flavors, including cherry, peach, blueberry, and apple. She also makes them in sugar-free flavors. Sometimes she'll swirl two flavors together--today I think I saw apple swirled with cherry and peach swirled with strawberry. Other times she'll make one pie but put a strip of that delicious crust I was talking about down the middle. A different filling will go on each side of the pie, so you'll get two flavors of pie instead of one. She also makes mini pies.

Last weekend I brought home some mini pies for the family. My husband took his blueberry pie out to eat later that evening. He said he would probably only eat a little; he wasn't that hungry.

He finished it all. He said he hadn't meant to but it was too hard to stop.

I bought myself peach. Look at the cute little letter that tells you exactly what flavor pie you're getting.

Today the Pie Peddler brought the most beautiful strawberry pie. I had already bought my husband a cherry turnover and my daughter some apple cider donuts, so I only intended on buying a mini pie for myself. Until I saw this gorgeous work of art.

Of course, then I had to ruin the work of art by cutting myself a slice.

Is there any way to cut a piece of strawberry pie and have it still look like strawberry pie?

I don't care. It was still delicious.

Naan Bread

There is not a better accompaniment to lamb curry than naan. It gives a contrasting texture to the meal (cruncy, a little grilled flavor) and it's also the perfect tool to scoop up the leftover gravy from the curry.

Naan is a leavened (yeast) flatbread. It's similar to pita, and is traditionally cooked in a clay oven. When we make it, we do it over the grill so you still get some of that smoky "fired" taste. When made properly, it's light, chewy, and filling without being heavy. This recipe is easiest when made in a stand mixer; however, you could do it by hand. It will just take you a little longer.

In your mixing bowl, combine 2 cups of all-purpose flour and one packet of yeast.

To the flour and yeast, add a cup of water. This is important--the water can't be too cold or your yeast won't bloom. But if it's too hot, your yeast will die and your dough won't rise. Water slightly warmer than your body temperature is perfect.

I also sprinkle some sugar over the top of the mixture.

Turn the mixer on to lightly combine.

While your yeast is waking up, grab a knife and cutting board and mince up some garlic.

Toss in the garlic, along with an egg, some milk, some olive oil, and some salt.

Beat everything together until you get a nice, sticky dough. 

Not quite...

Add the rest of the flour until the dough has pulled away from the sides of the bowl and is firm and smooth.

Mmm. Here everything has come together into a nice piece of bread dough.

Shape the dough so the top is smooth. I like to pull the sides of the dough underneath.

Place the dough ball in an oiled bowl. Let it rise for a couple hours.

Here it is, all ready to be rolled out.

I like to grab a hunk of dough and form it into a ball.

I don't have a picture of the next step (the whole "needing two hands" thing, plus my husband was busy), but basically I like to pull the dough out a little bit and then roll it.

Roll the dough flat.

Then I like to use my hands to stretch it out again. I like the varied shapes and thicknesses I get by doing this. It ensures you get some chewy parts and some crispy parts.

You don't want to pile all the dough on top of each other, or it will stick. And if you use flour, the flour willl burn (and it will still stick a little anyway.) What I usually do is use plastic wrap that I've sprayed with nonstick spray. However, I discovered that we were out of plastic wrap, so I used that press and seal wrap instead.

It actually worked pretty well, but you have to spray every single part of it or it will stick to itself.




Continue piling the bread. Bread, wrap, bread, wrap.

Heat up your grill to medium. You could do this inside (I bet you could even do this on the stovetop) but I like the grilled flavor.

Brush the top of the naan with butter.

Flip the bread, buttered side down, onto the grill. This may take some practice, but keep at it, it will only get easier.

Mmm. Look at all those bubbles.

When the naan is grilled on one side, brush the uncooked side with butter and flip it over.

Serve with curry and basmati rice.

Recipe: Naan Bread
4 1/2 c. flour
1 package yeast

1 c. warm water

2 tsp. minced garlic

1 egg
3 tbsp. milk
1 tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp. salt

1/4 c. butter, melted

Combine 2 c. flour and yeast in a mixing bowl. Add water, stir to combine.

Add garlic, egg, milk, oil, and salt. Beat until combined.

Gradually add in remaining flour. Beat until dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Place dough in well-oiled bowl; cover and allow to rise.

Once dough is double in size, divide into 8 balls. Pull and roll balls into flat shape.

Butter one side and grill butter side down over medium heat.

Butter the other side; flip bread when the first side is done.

When naan is cooked, brush lightly with butter and serve.