Mexican Chicken & Rice Soup…my remake…

Okay, so a couple of weekends ago, my husband and I spent a great weekend with friends at the Houston Rockets game….

Here’s a pic of the game from our view….

Here’s a pic of my honey and friend with two of the Rocket’s Cheerleaders….

UMMM….and here is a pic of my FAVORITE part of the night:)  The dessert cart that visits the suites!!! YUM!!!!

Anyways, back to the real meaning of this post…..after we enjoyed a night with friends at the game, we were able to spend some quality time together (which RARELY happens with two teenage girls and two busy careers) BUT….we lived it up!!!

We were eating at a restaurant in Houston at I ordered a cup….big mistake, should have ordered a bowl…of the most AMAZING soup!!!  I am a soup lover, as you can probably tell from my previous blog posts:)  So…..I studied the soup intensely to figure out all of the flavors and to see if I could recreate it when I got back to my kitchen!  Well…..I think I did….and if not, I came REALLY close:)

Here’s how I did it…..

I took 3 boneless and skinless chicken breasts and seasoned them with salt, pepper, thyme and drizzled them with olive oil.  I quickly seared them on a grill pan on top of the stove for about 3 minutes on each side, and then I placed two salted ears of corn on the grill pan with the chicken and placed in the oven for roasting for about 20 minutes on 375 degrees. (Turning the corn every 6 minutes of so for an even roasted corn.)

Meanwhile, I cut up in chunks 1 medium onion, 1 orange bell pepper, 1 zucchini, 12 small yellow squash and 4 carrots. I add a little olive oil to the bottom of a stock pot and begin to sauté the onion and bell pepper with salt, pepper, cumin (a generous amount), red pepper flakes and freshly chopped garlic, cilantro and thyme. When the vegetables became tender, I added the remaining vegetables to the pot and added 1 can of diced tomatoes and 2 cartons of chicken stock.

Meanwhile, while the chicken was cooling, I cut the roasted corn off of the cob and added to the soup mixture. Once the chicken was cooled, I sliced each piece and added the chicken and the juices to the stockpot. At this point, I also slice a lime in half and add the juices of the lime to the stockpot. I let the soup mixture simmer on the stove for about an hour to incorporate all of the flavors together.

Meanwhile, while the soup was simmering, I started a pot of cilantro lime rice that is served with the soup upon serving.  ( A MUST….it really needs this added treat and in my opinion, makes the soup heartier!!) Here’s how the rice is made….

1 cup of rice

1 tbs of olive oil

1 lime freshly squeezed and zested

1/4 cup of freshly chopped cilantro

1 1/2 cups of water

1/2 tsp salt

Okay….now that I have listed all of the ingredients….here’s the process! Add the olive oil to a sauce pan and toast the rice until coated with a little salt.  (Sometimes, I add in a finely chopped shallot for extra flavor.) Once the rice has been toasted for about 2 to 3 minutes, add the water, lime juice and zest and 1/2 of the chopped cilantro to the sauce pan.  Stir and let the rice mixture come to a boil and simmer all of the liquids out.  Once this happens, turn the stove off and cover the rice pot for 5 minutes to finish cooking.  Once finished, fluff up the rice and add the remaining cilantro….serve up a bowl of the Mexican Chicken Soup and top the bowl off with a nice scoop of Cilantro/Lime Rice and some avocado slices!!!! So YUMMY!!!! You will not be disappointed with this one!  Give it a try and let me know what you think about the recipe:)

Happy Sunday everyone!!!

I think I might make another pot today….looks and sounds so yummy I can’t resist!!