[Sca-cooks] Recipe: Chicken & rice soup w/sherry & lemon

[Peters, Rise J.]

Put water in a big pot.  Start it on high heat.   Add some salt, some fresh
ground pepper, some dried onion, maybe a little dried green pepper (not
much), chicken stock or bouillon, other spices if you want.  I use saffron
heated in a little broth (or, in its absence, turmeric) for the nice yellow
color and sometimes other things.

Add some chicken.  I usually use boneless breasts, but if your family will
eat dark meat, you could use other parts and probably get more flavor.  Turn
the heat down so it won't go all over the stove.

Look in the vegetable drawer of the frig and see what's there.  Mine usually
has  garlic, onions, garlic, carrots, garlic and celery.  Take them and
clean them and chop them into bits.   What size bits depends on whether
anyone in your family will want to pick some of it out; if so, make them
bigger.  You can't have too many onions or carrots, at least until it stops
looking like soup.

Add more pepper.

Get down the bottle of sherry and the  bottle of lemon juice.  I use
whatever sherry I like to drink (usually pretty sweet and moderately cheap)
and RealLemon.  Pour out a glass of sherry for the cook.

If you have frozen chicken stock in your freezer from the last time you did
this, put it in now or earlier.  If not, add a can of chicken broth and a
can of cream of chicken soup.  Turn the heat down a little more, and let it
simmer for a long time, until the chicken starts to fall apart.

Add more pepper.

Pull out the chicken and take  knife and render it into bits.  Put it back
in.  Be careful not to burn your fingers on the hot chicken.

Taste the broth, add salt if necessary.  Then add some sherry (make it go
"glug, glug") and some lemon (about two capfuls).  Taste, and if it needs
it, add more lemon to balance it out.  Cook it a while longer.  Repeat this
part (only one sherry glug at a time from here on) until the broth is as
rich as you want.  Meanwhile, drink sherry.  Finally, add a cup or more of
rice, and simmer until the rice is soft.