I love me some Chicken & Rice...and oyster crackers

It's pure coincidence that two of my favorite bloggers would be running recipe themes this week, so mine will be an all encompassing two-fer.

Shannon over at Rocks In My Dryer wants to know what's for dinner on Works For Me Wednesday and BooMama's Soup-tacular 2007 is just begging for some homemade Chicken & Rice!

I always manage to have these three ingredients: chicken stock (or bullion), veggies and chicken breast at our house, thus I can have "dinner" in pinch. I swear if Dr. G ever opened me up (I'm praying she doesn't, but if she did) she'd see chickens, clinging to vegetables, in a sea of broth. Well, maybe a more accurate visual would be clinging to vegetables like flotation devices while dodging buoys of fast food lunches, maneuvering around large masses of BBQ seaweed and the occasional iceberg of dessert. BUT, I do love me some chicken & veggies!

If you don't count rice as a vegetable (and you know you do it, too! Always trying to balance out your meal with rice and considering it "a side" like any other vegetable, even though it's a member of the bread/starch group) then my recipe requires *gasp* 4 ingredients and I should not be allowed to post EVER again. ;) *forehead slap* Oooh! Oooh! Unless you don't like onions! Aha! (But I do, so *pfffffffffbt*)

I digress.

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Homemade Chicken & Rice Soup

ingredients:

2 chicken breasts (cubed or shredded)
2 cans chicken/vegetable broth
1/2 rice
1 medium (sweet/vidalia/yellow) onion diced ("optional")
pepper, oregano (to taste)

method:

In a large pot sautee your onions with 2 pads of butter or 2 turns of the pan with EVOO (in case you're not a Rachael Ray fan that'd be Extra Virgin Olive Oil) over low heat.

I wait until the onions turns almost translucent and start to caramelize to add the chopped (I "shred") chicken breast and let saute in pan with the onions.

Add 2 cans of broth and bring to a simmer. I usually dilute it with a couple of cups of water to reduce the salt content even more and spread out the number of servings. I like a 3:1 ratio of broth to chicken/veggies.

Add rice and reduce heat to a simmer. (I almost always julienne some baby carrots and put it in the pot when I add the rice.) Cracked black pepper & Oregano to taste.

The longer it cooks the better the flavor, but it will never be as good the first day as it is the second. It takes roughly a half hour to cook after the chicken is placed in the pot.

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This recipe is healthy, low sodium (if you buy reduced sodium broth like I do)and encompasses 3 of the 5 major food groups: meat, vegetables, starch/bread. I think it's only missing chocolate and dairy? ;) It's homemade (read: made with love) and takes all of 7 minutes to prep and 30-40 to fully cook the chicken (less if you shredded the chicken or if you used already cooked chicken!)

I serve it in big bowls, curl up on the couch and toss in a handful of oyster crackers and read. Or watch TV. Or both. While typing one-handed on the laptop. ;)

Best of all there is only one pot to wash! ONE. Dinner doesn't get any better than that! :- )

It Works For Me and it's Soup-er.

Come on, ya'll, soups on!