Homemade Chicken and Rice Soup

Updated July 2020

One of the easiest things to make is your own soup. You add your own fresh ingredients, season it to suit your taste, no preservatives or other additives; just pure, simple homemade soup. What could be better than that? Plus your house will smell AMAZING while it cooks!

This soup is wonderful if you start with your own chicken bone broth, which takes a bit of time to make, but it cooks in a slow cooker, or in a stock pot on your stove top, and it's really very easy to do. Of course, you can skip this step and use packaged chicken stock if you want to.

RECIPE
Ingredients
1 quart (4 cups) chicken or turkey bone broth 
2 cups water
2-3 carrots, sliced into coins
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. course-ground black pepper
2-3 cups chicken, cooked and diced
2 cups cooked rice

Method
Bring broth, water, carrots, celery and spices to a boil over medium-high heat and cook until vegetables are tender. Adjust seasonings to taste, add chicken and simmer 15-20 minutes.

Add hot cooked rice to bowls and ladle soup over top. Serve immediately while hot with cornbread, biscuits or crusty bread.

Cooks note - do not add the cooked rice directly to the soup. The rice will continue to swell and absorb the broth resulting in a less than desirable soup. Store leftover soup and rice separately in a refrigerator. It keeps several days refrigerated or freeze leftover soup for another time.

Yield:  4 -6 servings

Enjoy,
Mary

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Old-Fashioned Homemade Buttermilk Pancakes

This is another great recipe from the cookbook Deep South Dish Home-Style Southern Recipes. It's quick and easy to make, and the pancakes are delicious. You can also find Mary on the internet at Deep South Dish.

I whipped some of these up for my husband for breakfast and all he could say was "mmmm, mmmm, yummmm, now I have a happy tummy."

RECIPE
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda
3 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. sea salt
2 cups buttermilk (make your own by adding 2-3 tsp. lemon juice to milk)
2 tbsp. butter melted
2 large farm fresh eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Method
Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt; set aside.

Combine milk with 2 tbsp, butter, eggs and vanilla. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture and gently combine. Batter should be fairly thick and lumpy, but pourable; avoid over-mixing.

Heat griddle or skillet over medium high heat. Spoon or pour 1/3 cup batter onto pan leaving at least 1/2"-inch between each. When pancakes begin to bubble up and edges appear dry, turn over to brown other side.

Serve immediately with additional melted butter and syrup.

Enjoy,
Mary