Wild Rice Soup 

This is a great soup that can be made with leftovers.  You can use chicken, turkey, ham or whatever type of meat you choose.  To start you need about a gallon of stock.  If you don’t have your own from your soup bones then purchase chicken broth.  A gallon is 128 oz. 

If you don’t have meat from your leftovers, then you need to purchase meat for your soup.  Something equivalent to about 3-4 chicken breasts would suffice.  It needs to be cooked and shredded/diced to be added to the soup.

 Additional Ingredients: 

• 16 oz. bag of wild rice (not Uncle Ben’s, but the true long grain wild rice you find at grocery stores)
• 3 cups of sliced carrots (about ¾ of the 16 oz. bag of baby carrots)
• 3 cups of sliced celery (about 5-6 stalks) (also use inner leafy part of the celery stalk in addition to your three cups as this adds great flavor.
• 24 oz of fresh whole mushrooms which need to be sliced up.  An egg slicer works great for this.
• 2 medium yellow onions which need to be diced up
• 10-12 slices of Canadian bacon if ham is not your base meat
• 2 sticks of butter for roux – you will need additional butter or olive oil to sauté your vegetables
• 1 cup flour
• 2 Bay leaves
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons thyme leaves
• garlic
• season-all
• Krazy Jane’s mixed up salt is also a great seasoning to use
• salt/pepper
• 32 oz. Velveeta
   

Preparation

 Cook rice according to package directions the night before. 

 In large soup stock pot, heat just your stock/broth over medium heat.  Season with season-all, Krazy Jane’s, salt/pepper, etc.

 Roux is the flour and butter.  To make it, melt the two sticks of butter over low heat.  Once melted, add the flour and continue to cook it for 15 minutes, stirring constantly.  Be careful not to let it brown.  Once done, whisk it into your heated stock/broth until roux is no longer visible.  Add bay leaves, your cooked meat and cooked rice. 

In large sauté pan, cook sliced carrots, celery and one of the onions.  Season to taste with garlic, season-all, Krazy Jane’s, salt/pepper, etc. 

Sauté the other onion and the sliced whole mushrooms in another large pan.  Also season to taste with garlic, season-all, salt/pepper, etc.  This seems like a lot of mushrooms, but they cook way down. 

Once the vegetables are done, add to soup mixture.  Fry up the bacon and cut it up and add it to the soup.  Add thyme leaves and let it cook over medium heat for about ½ hour stirring occasionally.  Season to taste with garlic, season-all, Krazy Jane’s, salt/pepper, etc.  Once it tastes “good”, the final touch is adding the diced Velveeta.  Continue to cook until all cheese is melted.  Ready to serve.  Makes a generous amount of soup, but it freezes well.