Cleaning out the refrigerator

During my week long bout of whatever-it-was (cold, flu, creeping ick) I didn't really eat, I just wasn't interested.  But my wonderful mother came over to insist I eat something and brought enough groceries to fully stock my refrigerator, which  included three kinds of chicken soup. (We can see where the family weight problem begins.)

Two of them were regular old canned soup, but the third was the HEB Chicken Tortilla Soup Kit. If you don't have an HEB grocery store nearby, you have my sympathy. Really, they're wonderful. Our local store has created a series of soup kits, which are a godsend if you want something healthy with very little effort. All you have to do is saute the veggies and add water.  I think they are a touch salty, but you can reduce it by not using as much of the spice mixture included in the kit.

Anyway, it was going to go bad if I didn't cook it, and since I've had a lot of chicken soup in the last week, I decided to try the other option listed on the packet: making it into a chicken and rice casserole.                                                         You start out the same way by sauteing the veggies until the onions go translucent.

Then instead of adding water, you put everything into a casserole dish. The kit comes with veggies, chicken, some Monterey Jack and tortilla chips. I left out the tortilla chips and added a dollop of sour cream and a cup of uncooked brown rice.



The casserole before the liquid spice mixture and after

Then I mixed the spice mixture with 2 cups of water. I had some wine leftover , so I used some of that instead of water. 

Stir it all up, cover it with foil and throw it in the oven (350 degrees F for approx. 2 hours).

This is the slow way to do it. I had other leftovers available for dinner and I wanted to watch the election returns.

If you want to have dinner quickly, follow the kit instructions. They have you simmer the rice on the stove for 20 minutes, essentially pre-cooking it before you put it in the casserole with the veggies and chicken.  Then you can crumble more cheese on top and put it in the oven to brown.

Either way works, and you end up with a tasty, tomatoey, casserole; suitable for dinner or reheating for lunch in the office microwave.