Wednesday turned into a perfect, stay-at-home, make soup and sew snow day. When I woke up and saw the snow falling, I was giddy like a little kid.
I haven’t had a perfect snow day in ages. And to make it even more ideal, my last Christmas present had arrived the day before–a brand new Le Creuset 2 3/4 qt. precision pour pot. It was fate. I had to cook something. It also seemed like the perfect day to finally use the Snowman pasta we got from my parents two Christmases ago! So, I started taking a look around to see what else I could throw into a pot of soup.
I had frozen chicken stock I had made last month after roasting a chicken, chicken breasts, frozen mixed veggies, cream, and cheese. Soup was ready to start!
The first step was heating the olive oil so I could drop in a pat of butter and see it sizzle. Oh, how I’ve been waiting to see that in a Le Creuset pot!
Such a gorgeous sight!
Next I threw in diced onions and garlic and let that sizzle for a few minutes, as I diced my chicken into tiny soup-sized pieces. Then into the pot they went as well with a nice toss of salt and pepper.
Once the chicken was all cooked and the juices were running nice and clear, I poured in the chicken stock I’d defrosted. It wasn’t quite enough, so I added a couple cups of Swanson chicken broth as well.
As soon as that was simmering, I added my veggies and about half the bag of pasta.
Um….I’m going to need a bigger pot!
Check out those cutie snowflake pastas! They were too perfect for words!
As the soup was simmering, I put a loaf of bread in the bread maker. I use this white bread recipe, but swap olive oil for the vegetable oil and add about one teaspoon of Italian seasoning, which makes the apartment smell like heaven! When Lloyd came in from shoveling at 10:30 a.m., he was ready to eat right then! He said I was mean for making the house smell so good and making him wait!
About 30 minutes before eating time, I added ~1/2 cup of cream to the soup to thicken it up. I took a little taste and added some more salt and pepper. Then I texted our downstairs neighbor to see if she’d like soup in a half hour. She was all about that!
15 minutes later I added about a cup of my secret ingredient–Kraft three cheese blend, with cream cheese. If you’ve never tried this blend of shredded cheese, you should. It melts like a dream!
YUM!
While waiting for the bread to ding, I realized that we were completely out of butter, which was unacceptable! We can’t have fresh bread with soup and no butter! So, Lloyd made an emergency run to our little local grocer while I cut the bread and made up our plates.
All ready to share! I’ll tell you what, it was delicious. Neither the soup or the bread lasted! It was the perfect lunch for a truly perfect snow day.
Natter with us