Back in the Saddle

January was not a good month for soup in our house. I ate a bowl of "aged" soup and made myself sick, so soup was not on the menu for a few weeks until I got over my mad--and upset stomach. (Don't you hate it when you poison yourself like that? I seem to do it every couple years. Careless.) But I'm working all this week and all next week so I needed something quick and easy for lunches. Therefore, I'm back to making soup.



This week we have Curried Chicken Soup. As usual, I started with Pam Anderson's Fast Chicken Soup Base. (Once again I apologize for always starting from the same spot, but it's such an easy and versatile recipe that I just can't resist.)

**I used half Beef Broth instead of all chicken, and I chose the very darkest rotisserie chicken that Walmart had so that the soup broth is dark brown and rich looking.

**In with the onions, celery and carrots I added about 1/4 of a bell pepper chopped, and I sliced and sauteed a pound of button mushrooms (sorry, DIL, they were cheap) in a separate skillet to toss in.

**For the veggies, I diced a zucchini and chopped a bag of frozen cauliflower florets, and I drained a can of chickpeas to add to ramp up the protein. (One of my favorite things about Weight Watchers old Quick Start plan was that you could count dried beans and chickpeas as either a Bread Exchange or a Protein Exchange. For some reason that seemed like a luxury to me, plus it lets me make my own hummus which makes great lunches on toasted whole wheat pita with sliced cukes and tomatoes on top. Mmm.)

**And finally, I put in 1 Tablespoon of curry powder. (It could stand more, maybe 2 Tablespoons total, but Don doesn't like things spicy and I love him so I make it mild for him.)