The other day, J & I were reading books and we read one called Secret Soup. It was about a boy bear and his dad who together made a special batch of soup. As soon as it was done, J wanted to make some soup too. It was a good day to have a meal ready in the crock pot so I agreed. We dug up this recipe from a Simple Slow Cooker Recipe book (I’d link you to it but I can’t find it online anywhere). J dragged the step stool over to the counter. We added a ‘secret ingredient’ of our own — because that’s how the story works people. And voila – a yummy dinner ready & waiting for us when we got home from CCD!

Spinach, Chicken & Wild Rice Soup
cook’s note: These amounts are for a 4 quart crock pot. I have a big crock pot so I doubled everything.

3 cups water
1 14 oz can of chicken broth
1 10 oz can condensed cream of chicken soup
2/3 cup of wild rice
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
3 cups chopped, cooked chicken
2 cups shredded fresh spinach

Combine all ingredients thru chicken in a crock pot. Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours or high for 3.5 to 4 hours. About 10 minutes before serving, stir in the spinach.

What was our secret ingredient? Don’t let J know I told you… we stirred in 1 cup of quick-cooking brown rice about 2 hours before serving and it thickened up the soup nicely. (We also added the spinach that early because it goes over better in this house if it’s a bit more wilted and thus smaller) If you like your soup more brothy you probably wouldn’t like our secret. If you were at home while this was cooking you’d also probably add the rice about 30 minutes before serving so it wouldn’t soak up quite as much broth. My husband added a couple of splashes of tabasco sauce to his bowl which was a good idea too. Yummmm