Southwest Chicken Soup

Tonight's dinner is also known as -  a good way to use up a rotisserie chicken.

The other night I brought home a rotisserie chicken for a quick dinner - but with just the two of us - its tough to get through a whole chicken.  So - the fantastic solution - a soup!

• Saute a few spoonfuls of garlic in a soup pot.
• Add 6 cups of chicken broth (we use this a lot - so I always stock up when its on sale)
• Add in 1 tsp of cumin
• 1/4 cup of rice (I used brown rice)
• 1 can (16 oz of Great Northern beans) - the white ones :) rinsed & drained.
• Simmer for 30 min - because I used brown rice, it took considerably longer than if I had used quick white rice)
• Stir in 3 cups of shredded cooked chicken & 1/2 cup of chopped cilantro
• Heat for 5 minutes or so until the chicken heats up, then stir in 1 tsp or so of fresh lime juice.

I love soup - and this one turned out pretty good.  The cilantro stirred in near the end gave it a fresh bite.

Italian Sausage Gnocchi Soup

Ah, doughy and delicious gnocchi. I don't exactly know what these dumplings are, or where they come from, but I can tell you this much: The name looks Italian, they are a-freakin-mazing, and you can find them shrink-wrapped near the pasta at the super market.

• Brown sausage in a pan - I used about 10 ounces, but I love Italian Sausage, you could probably go as low as 5.
• Add a package of gnocchi (16 ounces), 2 cups of water, one can of italian style stewed tomatoes, one can of beef broth
• Bring to a boil and simmer until the gnocchi float (it took mine about 5 minutes)
• Top with Parmesan if you like it

The soup was easy, filling, and savory. It was rainy and cold today so I was ready for something warm and comforting. This was perfect. Give it a shot, if I can make it, you can too!

Tomato Bisque Soup with Crab

Tonight David is off with his mom at a cooking class as our gift to her for Christmas. The menu of the class stated one of the featured recipes was crab cakes. I just happen to love crab cakes.  Making crab cakes seemed a little extensive for me tonight, so I decided to go with this alternative.

The deli at Fred's has a pretty good refrigerated tomato bisque soup. I "souped" it up a bit by cooking in some white onion, garlic and lump crab meat.  I bought about 4 oz worth of lump crab and stirred it in.

Not so glamorous of a meal - and not comparable to crab cakes in any way, but left me with plenty of leftovers for lunch tomorrow - yum!