Soup of the Week – Lemon Chicken Orzo Edition
Right now I am enjoying the last hot bowl of last week’s Soup of the Week.
OK, the second last. The Fab Hub is enjoying the very last bowl. I asked him about his lunch choice…
Me: You’re eating soup.
FH: Yeah. It’s good soup.
This, he delivered with a hint of incredulousness as if to say “why would I not be eating soup? It’s not such an odd thing to ask, considering that the man is really not a soup fan. It has something to do with his post-college/pre-marriage years and his Mom and an overabundance of canned soup.Me: You don’t like soup.
FH: But it’s good soup.
You’d think after knowing this man for nearly thirteen years I would know not to attempt conversation when he is eating. It doesn’t work well.
In all fairness, the Fab Hub has eaten many a bowl of soup served at our table. This one he seems to particularly enjoy. I know this because he’s eaten it for at least two meals that I did not specifically put it on the list of menu options.
The soup is basically good old fashioned chicken soup, but with a very bright twist – lemon. I think I wanted chicken soup because I was feeling a bit pre-cold congested. The changes in weather and barometric pressure around here lately have wreaked havoc on my sinuses. I just came off a week of headache and congestion. It never turned into a full-blown upper respiratory or sinus infection, though. Know why? Chicken soup and radish smoothies. (Yes, radish smoothies. You can read why here.)
I have seen this soup several places – mostly pins from various blogs on Pinterest. It looks like they are all slight variations of the same recipe from Cooking Light. But the Cooking Light version wants you to make your own whole chicken and involves things like necks and giblets. Eew.
If you don’t feel like going that route, try the adaptation at Food.com which uses a rotisserie chicken. And I really think you could just use your own cooked chicken, whether it be a whole or some breasts or thighs or whatever.
In this case, I did something I never do and bought a rotisserie chicken. The absolute only reason I did was because I wanted to try making my own chicken broth and this seemed like a good way to accomplish both tasks. None of eats dark meat so there is really no point to ever making or buying a whole chicken. But. There was that tempting urge to try the homemade broth. (Which I did…I’ll save that for another post.)
I grabbed a lemon-chicken flavor rotisserie bird from our awesome supermarket’s café section. Their food is really decent quality and generally made with very good ingredients. We realized too late, however, that yellow dyes 5 and 6 lurked in the lemon pepper seasoning used on the rotisserie chicken. Growl. Kidzilla reacts to yellow dyes so we were concerned. The Fab Hub and I would prefer that junk wasn’t in the food at all, but decided that any amount that might finally make it into her system was likely to be negligible. As it turns out, we did not observe any of the typical reactions and so we’ll simply chalk it up to luck this time and avoid that in the future.
Other than not worrying about exact measurements on the recipe ingredients, we followed this as it appears on Food.com. We used dried herbs rather than fresh simply because the market didn’t have any fresh that day. Just make sure you adjust measurements when substituting dried for fresh. My carrot quantity was probably higher than what was listed and I definitely used more than one clove of garlic. Who uses only one clove of garlic, especially in a soup for someone with a potential cold? Garlic is healing. My celery was non-existent because we hate it and leave it out of everything – it was not missed. We skipped the optional cracked black pepper and Romano cheese at the end because the soup was perfect without them.
![20140114_182752[1]](http://www.themeaningofme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/20140114_1827521.jpg)
We served this as the main attraction with a fresh loaf of Dakotapam’s beer bread on the side. (Let me tell you how that is a new favorite in this house!) I intended to make a side of broccoli, which would have been a perfect color addition to the table, but we forgot and all decided we were OK without it for the night. Next time.
Now that our lemon chicken orzo soup is finished, I’m on the hunt for a new Soup of the Week. Any good suggestions or favorites out there?
Oh, yes, and somebody please help me out… Totally unrelated, I can’t figure out why my images don’t show up on my little blurb on Bloglovin’ when I post. Any ideas?
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Hmmmm I’m not sure about the pic on Bloglovin. Some of my feeds from blogs have a picture, some don’t, and some have a teaser, and some don’t…
All that, and I think that this soup sounds delish!
I can’t figure out the pic on Bloglovin’ thing at all. Oh well.
The soup was awesome – great right out of the pot and as leftovers!
Huh. I have a very similar recipe pinned and was debating that or a mushroom soup for tomorrow. I think mushroom will win since we have some good ones from our CSA. Chicken can wait. By the way, sometime this fall I read about the best way to make chicken stock. Three pounds of chicken wings (something about something makes them the best for stock), some onion and some garlic (whatever seems right). And do it in the slow cooker. Tried it and it really is the best.
I would love to make mushroom soup. The Fab Hub, however, will not touch the stuff. I’ll be Kidzilla would, though.
My chicken broth/stock/whatever – I know there’s a difference but I don’t care right at this second – is made from what’s left of the rotisserie chicken and vegetable scraps. Yup, scraps. Awesome.
Ah, here’s the link: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2013/11/perfect-uncluttered-chicken-stock/
Thanks – I’m checking this out because I really want to know why the wings are a thing.
I adore your soup choices.
An all time favorite of mine is cold cauliflower soup, but it’s more a summertime kinda soup. It is also my go to soup when we have company, I just add any smoked fish and it’s an instant Michelin Star worthy soup.
Hmm…I bet I could find a hot cauliflower soup out there somewhere. That has potential. I feel like the pink soup I made last Valentine’s Day had cauliflower – have to go look.
Did you set a featured image on your post? That could be why your image isn’t showing up.
Two of our favorite soups are Santa Fe Soup -http://homemakersdaily.com/stupendous-sante-fe-soup/
and Slow Cooker Chicken Tortillas Soup
http://homemakersdaily.com/slow-cooker-chicken-tortilla-soup/
They are both delicious! I like Baked Potato Soup, too, but it uses a fair amount of milk and my husband is lactose intolerant. So I haven’t been making it as much.
I did not set a featured image, no.
Thanks for the soup recommendations! Snow in the forecast (again) demands soup!
I’m not sure about BlogLovin’ – I honestly don’t really use it much (and know I should as everybody loves it). Your soup sounds amazing! YUM. And sorry that I don’t have any soup recipes for you but will tell you that my dad makes an amazing turkey breast noodle soup. I think the key is that he buys these home-made noodles from one of the markets near him.
That’s what we do! The deli at our Farmer’s Market makes homemade egg noodles in three different sizes/widths. I have used them for several things and they are just amazing.
I made the most delicious lentil and red wine soup a couple weeks ago. I don’t know how kid-friendly that would be, but it was mainly a tomato base, so it might be okay without it.
Hmm…that sounds good. Do you have a recipe?
Here is the recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/RED-WINE-LENTIL-SOUP-51506201
You can always find a filler for the celery – maybe spinach or kale. I’d say mushrooms, but you want the husband to eat it! I added carrots as well to pick up on the sweet of the tomatoes.
Oh, wow, that sounds delicious and simple. That will go nicely with a crusty, Italian bread! Thanks! I love that you remembered that the Hub doesn’t do mushrooms. 🙂 That would work for me and Zilla, but yeah he’ll definitely cry about those. I’ll bet chopped carrots or bell pepper could work. Definitely trying this one next week because I am in the mood for a tomato-based soup.
Oh, yum! This sounds wonderful. I am all about chicken soup as my go-to antibiotic alternative. Served with a cup of tea with lemon and honey.
You’re exactly right – and this one was particularly awesome with the touch of citrus in there. I’ve learned so much about home remedies and healing foods in the last year and a half and you know what? Other than our regular allergy meds, none of us has had need for a trip to the doctor for antibiotics or the like during that period of time.
Tonight was soup night again and this week’s is a bit similar, I guess – we did a nice, light, and kind of different version of Italian Wedding soup. I’ll put that one up next week!
That soup sounds great! When we lived in Indiana there was a little diner that had the best lemon chicken and orzo soup. Now I’m hungry.
I’m glad you guys liked the beer bread, it is a favorite here as well!
As for chicken stock, I usually just use bones from whatever chicken we happen to be eating. I don’t use my slow cooker for much these days, but it makes great chicken stock! (I cook the bones in water with some onion overnight.) Rotisserie chickens seem to make the best stock though! I pick most of the chicken off of the carcass and set the chicken aside and then cook the carcass in water overnight in the slow cooker. I add the chicken to my soup during the last bit of cooking, it heats it up, but does not dry it out. One of our grocery stores sells rotisserie chickens 2/$10 which is a steal!
This one was really good – chicken soup is great, but the lemon in this one really gave it a bright taste.
I made chicken stock in my soup pot – used the strainer part because it was so much easier to pitch the remains. But honestly, it turned out really great! I’ve never tried it in the slow cooker, but that would definitely be a good option. Thanks for the tip!
The soup sounds amazing. Was it easy to make or lots of work? I have so little patience for cooking that it has to be super simple and quick or else I give up and open a can (shocking I know).
Completely easy, Mim. In the time it takes you to open the can and heat up whatever’s in it, you can have this soup ready – especially if you use the rotisserie chicken or whatever already-cooked leftovers you have. Totally simple.
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