Food for Thought

As many of you know cooking is one of the things I am... opinionated about. So when I find a good recipe I am ecstatic. On Saturday night Brian and I ate dinner with our wonderful friends, Kurtis and Megan (and Derek), Megan made an amazing dinner (and she has a new little baby, seriously she is amazing) and was nice enough to share the recipe with me, what are friends for right? I need to preface the recipe by saying that I am not always a fan of soup for dinner, I mean some soups just arent filling enough to be the whole meal, but no worries this one is! If any of you have ever had Grandma Suker's potato cheese soup (or a variation) it is even more filling than that one.  

Megan's Fantastic Broccoli Chicken Cheese Soup

1/2 lb chicken

4 medium potatoes

3 chicken bullion cubes

2 cups broccoli**

3/4 cup butter

3/4 cup flour

2 cups milk

2 cups half and half (I have to confess that I used heavy cream instead since I didnt have half and half and I would highly recommend the substitution because everything is better with heavy cream)

1/2 t. salt

1/2 jar cheese wiz (I wasnt actually sure what this was and I didnt have any cheddar cheese so I added one can of Campbells condensed cheddar cheese soup, it worked really well)

Bake chicken and chop into bite sized pieces. Peel and chop potatoes, cover in water and cook until tender, DO NOT DRAIN WATER! Melt butter, mix in flour, add milk and half and half. Cook until thick. Add milk mixture to potatoes and water. Add remaining water and cook until hot. 

**I would recommend precooking the broccoli, I just threw fresh broccoli in but it was still really hard, so I ended up fishing each piece out with a strainer, cooking the pieces and then adding them back (don't worry Brian never saw). I think Megan used frozen broccoli and hers wasn't hard, so maybe it is just a warning for the fresh stuff. 

Good Luck! I really hope those of you that decide to make this recipe end up liking it, it was a great twist on the not so filling broccoli cheese soup, and there is no powder involved (I have had bad experiences with broccoli cheese soup powder)