Potato Soup

I love making soups, especially in the fall. I can only think of one soup that I really don't care for, split pea, and my absolute favorite is cabbage. Tonight I played around with my standard potato soup recipe, and I think it turned out pretty well. The spice measurements are purely guesstimates here. Usually when I'm making something I end up adding things and I always forget to measure, so take it for what it's worth, and play around to suit your tastes.


1 medium onion, diced
1/4 cup butter, divided
5-6 large potatoes, cubed
3 cups chicken broth
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp dill (dried)
2 tsp pepper
1 tsp parsley
1tsp celery seed
1/3 cup flour
3 1/2 cups milk, divided

In large pot, sauté onion in 2 tbsp butter until soft. Add chicken broth, salt, dill, pepper, parsley and potatoes. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cover, simmering until potatoes are tender. Mix 1/2 cup milk and flour in small bowl and add to potatoes, stirring constantly until combined. Add remaining milk and heat through.

Greek night!!

One thing that I really miss from home (besides Slurpees and coney's, of course) is good Greek food. In Houston there is a Greek restaurant that always gets rave reviews. Gary and I tried it out one evening, and found it to be just ok and VERY expensive. I found a recipe for Greek style lemon chicken rice soup (one of my favorite Greek dishes) and thought I'd try it out. It was delicious!! Gary thought it was a bit too lemony, but I really liked it. I made an extremely large batch, as I do with most soups, so I can freeze it. The recipe here is enough for a small army, but can easily be cut in half (or even less).

Greek style Lemon Chicken Rice Soup

20 cups chicken broth (I used water and bullion to make my broth)
1 cup fresh lemon juice (about 6 lg lemons)
1/4 cup Greek seasoning (I used Pampered Chef, but any kind will do)
pepper
1 large onion, chopped
1 lg head celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 12 oz bags of frozen carrots, cooked until tender
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup butter, melted
9 egg yolks
5 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded in large chunks*
2 cups cooked white rice


In a large stock pot bring broth, lemon juice, Greek seasoning and pepper (to taste) up to a slow boil. In a separate pan sauté onion, celery and garlic in 1 tbsp butter until tender and add to broth with carrots. Combine butter and flour and slowly add to broth, stirring constantly. In a separate bowl whisk egg yolks until thinned a bit. Add 2 ladles of hot broth to bowl and whisk well. Slowly incorporate egg mixture into soup, stirring constantly. Add shredded chicken and bring soup back up to a slow boil. To avoid mushy rice in the leftover soup, I cook the rice and add it to individual bowls.

* I cooked my (frozen) chicken in the crockpot with Greek seasoning, 1/2 cup water and 1/4 cup olive oil on high for about 5 hours. You can use any kind of shredded chicken. A rotisserie chicken from the grocery store would work just as well.

I served it with warmed pita bread and a fresh green salad.