Creamy Chicken and Rice Soup

From my old CrockPot Blog-
I recently posted the recipe I use for Roast Chicken. I did cook that this week and had a lot of leftovers. I found this soup on my friend Kelly's cooking blog and I made it. It was fantastic!!! I am very much not a soup person, but this was really good.

• 1/2 c. chopped carrot
• 1/3 c. finely chopped onion
• 1/3 c. chopped celery
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2T butter (I, of course, only use margarine)
• 1/4 c. flour (soft white works great)
• 2 14-1/2 oz. cans chicken broth (I use homemade from the freezer)
• 2 c. cooked rice (I use brown)
• 1 c. cubed cooked chicken
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 1 cup milk (I use Lactose-free 2% milk))
• 2 T lemon juice

In a large saucepan, saute the carrot, onion, celery and garlic in butter/margarin unil tender. Stir in flour until blended. Gradually stir in broth. Add the rice, chicken, salt and pepper; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 10-15 min. or until vegetables are tender. Reduce heat to low. Stir in the milk and lemon juice. Cook and stir for 5 min. or until heated through.
The only thing I did differently was that I added more water to cook the rice in the soup. That's it!

Roast/Fried Chicken Seasoning

I found a recipe for "Mimi's Sticky Chicken" several years ago on a homeschool forum I participate in.

• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon white pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Mix these spices together and spread evenly over a whole 3lb chicken. The actual recipe suggests putting 1 cup of chopped onions in the empty chicken cavity. I usually skip that part, I might do it if my husband is going to be home. But normally not.

Cook at 225 deg. for 5 hours. It's a wonderful meal!

I found myself making this recipe so often, I decided once to just mix all the spices together at once. Here are the spices multiplied by 6. One chicken would need 2 TBSP of this spice mixture. This means that you could make 6 roast chickens with this mixture. I just mix it up and put it in a gladware container.

• 4 TBSP salt
• 2 TBSP paprika
• 1.5 TBSP cayenne pepper
• 1 TBSP onion powder
• 1 TBSP thyme
• 1 TBSP white pepper
• 1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 1/2 tsp pepper

I also use this mixture for fried chicken. I put 1 TBSP of this spice mixture into a 1/2 cup of flour for a fried chicken seasoning. I sometimes add a bit more paprika because that's what I like.