Bust out your soup pots, people. It's time for cream of chicken soup. Until I saw this recipe on FoodNetwork.com, I thought cream of chicken soup was something that only came in a can, and you only used it for casseroles. Turns out, it's a smooth and tasty variation on your typical chicken noodle soup.
I followed the recipe pretty closely. Here are my notes:
I used four carrots instead of three, and a whole celery heart. I don't know what a Spanish onion is, so I got a regular old yellow one. I also threw in two cloves of garlic (minced), because I always have it on hand, and it feels wrong to start a recipe without minced garlic. I only had dried herbs, and that worked out fine. I used about a teaspoon of dried thyme, and probably a tablespoon and a half of dried parsley.
Sweet corn was on sale in the produce department today, so I used the
kernels from three ears. I added that at the "bring it to a boil while
whisking continuously" step. If anybody knows the secret to slicing
corn off the cob without the kernels getting e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e, please
leave me a comment.
The flavor of this soup is lovely and delicate - don't stump your toe on the sherry, or that is all you will taste. I cheated and used box stock and a chicken from the deli, but I can tell that using homemade stock and a "from scratch" boiled chicken would add another layer of awesomeness to this recipe (I just didn't have time for all that today).
Final verdict: this is really good, and the reviews on the web site indicate that it's great left over and freezes well. Serve with french bread and a green salad (the soup does have heavy cream and a whole stick of butter in it, after all!)
~~ edit ~~
An Andie update, since I figure some people are wondering:
Andie is doing very well. She checked out okay at the regular vet when we went for our followup appointment, and we have since finished all the meds. She has bed privileges now (to preserve my sanity), so she is only confined to the crate in the evenings between the time I get home from work and bedtime. We will continue with that routine until June 9, and after that she will be crate free, but I will get a ramp for the sofa. The other furniture will have to be off limits because jumping is now taboo.