chicken and rice soup

I made a pretty good soup today:

3/4 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped carrot
garlic, to taste
onion, to taste
french herb mix, to taste (savory, thyme, rosemary, basil, tarragon, lavender flowers)
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
1 qt chicken stock (or 4 c. water and 2 chicken bullion cubes), divided
1 cup rice
1 cup milk
4 T butter
4 T flour
1 cup cooked chicken, cubed or shredded (I used leftover rotisserie chicken)

Add celery, carrot, garlic, onion, salt, french herb mix, and 1/4 cup chicken stock to large pot. Saute veggies until soft. Add rice and 2 1/4 cups chicken stock, then cook for 20 minutes, until rice has absorbed liquid.

In a smaller pot, melt butter and add flour. Slowly mix in milk. Add this creamy mixture and the chicken to the rice. At this point, the "soup" will be pretty thick, so I dumped the rest of my container of chicken stock into the pot, and it was like eating soup in a bread bowl. But if you prefer a thinner soup, you can add more water or milk.

I think I probably got the french herb mix at Whole Foods. It brings out the sweetness in the milk.

Easy Lemon Chicken and Rice

I finally figured out my meal plans for the weekend.

For Friday's dinner, I'll be serving Allrecipe's Easy Lemon Chicken and Rice.

I love that this cooks in a microwave, so my kitchen will stay nice and cool. The last time I made this recipe, E. was still intolerant of rice, so I omitted it. I'm curious how it will turn out with the rice this time.

I doubled the recipe, but I only had chicken broth in 1-cup servings, so I used one and added 1/2 c. water to make up the difference. The recipe was definitely better with rice. The rice absorbed all the yummy chicken broth and lemon juice. I thought it was a nice balance of protein, carb and veggie, and I loved the lemon with the rice. I could happily eat this once or twice a month.