Chicken and Rice Soup: Just Add Chicken and Rice

Remember the children's story about Stone Soup? To make the soup the stranger said all he need was a stone. So the villagers brought the man a stone and he put it in the pot. Then he said he just needed a little onion to go with it. And then a few carrots would be good. And could someone come up with a few potatoes? Soon the stranger had prepared a delicious soup. Wasn't that clever!

So now it seems that's all you need to do to make a delicious soup out of a can. My brother's girlfriend was heating up some chicken and rice soup to go with grilled cheese sandwiches. She said that the chicken in it was pretty small and not much of it; they should get some of those cans of chicken to keep handy so they could add it to soups. And she mentioned that she had put some of the left-over rice that I had made the day before into the soup. Then she laughed, "It's getting pretty bad when you have to add chicken and rice to chicken and rice soup."

Pizza -- semi-homemade

I've been experimenting with using pizza dough mixes. Not the pizza kits, just a mix to make crust. I've tried 2 different brands and I liked them both just fine. For sauce I used a chopped up whole tomatoes once, and another time I mixed ketchup and salsa. Both of those were fine, also. They are quite reasonably priced.

For cheese I used mozzarella. For toppings I have tried canned sliced mushrooms and sliced black olives, ham, fresh onions, canned pineapple, and I can't remember what else. I liked all that mostly, but the onion was a little too raw in the time it took to cook the pizza. I guess I'll try pre-cooking the onion (or maybe cut finer?) next time. You can put anything that you want.

I've noticed other things available in the same area of the store also, such as pepperoni.