Smoky-Spicy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

The other day, I was daydreaming as usual. During my lovely daydreaming time, I realized that I rarely ever eat rice. I can't even remember the last time that I ate rice. It was possibly when Paul made his famous sushi...in October of last year! It's not that I necessarily HATE rice, it's just that rice is a bland, boring food and I like bold flavors in my meals. Anyway, rice is healthy and it is said that it helps people lose weight. This spiked my interest and I pored over many recipes to find a rice soup that actually had taste to it. :)

This is what I came up with. I combined multiple recipes of rice-based soups and "invented" this soup. It was delicious, but perhaps I went overboard on the spiciness of the soup. Next time, I will tame the spice a bit. In my instructions, I give a tamer version, and in the comments, I will explain what I did to make it EXTREMELY spicy, so that if you love spicy food, you can try it that way too. :)

What I love about this soup: it has a deceiving look of a bland, chicken and rice soup, but it had a smoky-type of spice to it that made it SO good! I also loved that it used pepper jack cheese, which I have never used in a recipe before! It really makes the soup perfect.

Ingredients:
*Olive oil
*1/2 - 1 onion, chopped
*1 clove of garlic, minced
*3 stalks of celery, thinly sliced
*1 whole carrot, sliced (or 8-10 baby carrots, sliced)
*1 can (10.75oz) cream of chicken soup
*4 cups of chicken broth
*2-3 cups of wild rice, cooked
*2-3 cups of chicken, cooked and cubed/sliced
*chili powder (spice)
*cayenne pepper (spice)
*ground cumin (spice)
*1-2 cups shredded pepper jack cheese
*3/4 - 1 cup half in half *OR* whipping cream *OR*milk
*3 tbsp. chopped cilantro
*cilantro sprigs for garnish
*half a can (4 oz) of green chilies
*1-2 chipotle peppers in adobe sauce (next to green chilies in mexican aisle)
*small spoonful of adobe sauce from chipotle peppers can

Directions:
1. In a large soup pan, heat oil on medium heat, saute onion, garlic, carrots, and celery for 8-10 minutes or until tender.
2. Stir in soup and broth. Add rice and chicken (both cooked), spices, green chilies, chipotles, and most of the pepper jack cheese. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Stir in the cream and cilantro. Heat until warm. Pour into bowls and top with extra pepper jack cheese and some sprigs of cilantro. Serve with bread of choice. Makes about 6 servings.


Comments:
*I used part of a rotisserie chicken so that I didn't have to cook the chicken. I really love using these things since they cut out a lot of the boring parts of cooking!
*I used a whole bag (3 cups) of Uncle Ben's wild rice (see picture below) because it only took 90 seconds in the microwave to cook. Wow! I didn't know that rice could be done so quickly. I know, this shows how little I use rice in my meals. :)
*I had leftover asiago-cheese bread, so we used that with the meal. I am SO glad that I did! I don't know why, but the combination of this smoky-tasting soup and the tang of asiago bread was AMAZING! I will always use this kind of bread as a side with this soup now. I highly recommend it.
*I did not tell you how much spice to include b/c everyone's taste buds are different. I like a heavy dose of cayenne pepper and a light sprinkle of chili powder and cumin. But you might like one of the others better! Use the spices to YOUR tastes. Or even add new ones! (Just let me know what you add if it turns out really really good!) :)
*I also don't give exact measurements with a lot of the parts of this soup because everyone is different. I LOVE cheese, so I added lots of it. But maybe you do not love cheese like I do. Same thing with the cream-base. I poured in half-and-half until it seemed like a perfect amount. But what is perfect to me maybe not be perfect to you. These type of exact things aren't needed when cooking soup. It's probably one of the reasons that I love soup so much.
*Make sure to include at least one chipotle pepper, as this is what really makes the soup taste 'smoky'. I thought the soup was simply spicy, until after I added the cream part of the soup. Then, I tasted it again and it really tasted 'smoky-spicy'. Yum...
*What I did to make it super super spicy: I figured that since I love chipotle peppers and I have made a soup with them before, I could add three (like in my other soup: see Southwestern Soup) and it would taste amazing. What I discovered is that what works for one soup does NOT work for another. :) Three chipotles made this soup REALLY fire-hot! It was a good thing we had bread. Don't worry, though: if it happens that this soup is too spicy for you, just add more broth or cream-base to it to dampen the power of the spice.