Day 6: Chicken and Orzo Soup

Day 6 of the weekly meal planner was actually delayed a little bit, because we received a visit from Drew's parents this past weekend.  We had a wonderful time with them, as always.  They are building a new house and listing their current house for sale this week.  So, they decided it was a great time to bring up a whole SUV full of boxes of some of Drew's childhood things (baseball cards, transformers, legos, and even High School shop class projects that he made for them).   It was fun to go through Drew's art projects from elementary school--he was pretty creative and had a very impressionistic style.

Anyway, Drew didn't want me to try any new recipes out on them, so we decided to finish Day 6 and 7 of the meal planner this week.

  

This was the easiest soup I have ever made!  I will guess it took me about 20 minutes total to cook this soup.  Plus, I saved 10 minutes by preparing the orzo pasta when I had to cook it for the last meal that required it. I will add that it is probably the most delicious soup I have ever made.  Drew had a bit of a sore throat today and said the soup was a perfect match meal for it.  So, without further ado....

Here are our verdicts:

Heather:  This was an excellent combination of flavors and textures.  The crunchiness of the celery balanced the mushiness that I dislike about mushrooms.  The orzo and chicken were complimentary as well.  I really enjoyed the lemon flavor of the broth.  The parsley gave the soup a very healthful taste.  I loved that the soup contained so much protein, with the combo of cannellini beans and chicken.  I rate this an 8, which is a high rating from me for a soup.

A happy Drew enjoying the soup

Drew:  Mushrooms again!  Hooray!  A very fresh tasting and healthy dish.  It soothed my sore throat.  I liked having the orzo pasta in the soup.  This sounds strange coming from me (not a celery fan), but I think I would prefer even more celery in the soup.   My rating is an 8--delicious and I think this should stay on our meal rotation. 

Luke liked it also!

And here's the recipe in case you're interested:  Chicken-and-Orzo Soup Recipe - Every Day with Rachael Ray