Veggie and cheesey and chickeney goodness

Okay so your dilemma is that you only have zucchini, carrots, cheese and paprika but you want chicken tortilla soup for dinner. Wait. That isn't your issue? Okay well it was my issue so I remembered this recipe I used once last year to make veggie chowder. And I improvised and made chicken veggie cheesey soup.

It might sound weird (and look a little weird?), but I promise it is delicious.

Here's how it works:

You can use chicken if you want to, or don't. Whatever floats your boat.

You will need:

5 cups of chicken broth or stock (if you boil the chicken, you can use that broth, or you can buy chicken broth at the store, in case you get grossed out by the fact that you boiled chicken in that water and therefore refuse to use it.)

1 cup of chopped carrots

1 cup of chopped zucchini. You can also use yellow straightneck squash if you want to mix it up.

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped broccoli. I like to make these pretty small (like, the size of a penny) so that the cheese doesn't all stick to them.

1 cup water, mixed AHEAD OF TIME, with three table spoons of flour. It won't mix up if you add it right to the soup before you mix the flour and water.

1 cup of milk

10 shakes of smoked paprika... not sure how much that is in teaspoons, but I'd guess a few. Isn't that helpful :) Use ten shakes and if you can't do that, go with two teaspoons.

2 teaspoons of garlic salt

2 cups of shredded medium or sharp cheddar

1-2 cups of boiled, shredded chicken

And as much salt as you'd like to make it delicious. I use Lawery's seasoning salt.

Okay so here's how it goes. Bring the broth to a boil and add the veggies. You'll want to boil them about 5 minutes, until they are blanched. Then you can add the milk, mixture of flour and water, and stir that. The flour will thicken the soup a bit, to give it more of a chowder texture. Now add the paprika and garlic salt. Mix that up really well and keep the soup boiling. I add the chicken next. I like to let it get warm in the soup before I add the cheese. When the soup returns to a boil, begin sprinkling the cheese and mixing it in. You don't want to just dump it all in, or it will clump on the veggies. So sprinkle and stir until the cheese is all mixed and melted in. YUM. I love cheese.

Now you can add as much salt as you'd like. I also usually add more paprika, because I am addicted to it, but I will let you make that call. I also go heavy on salt, because I also like that quite a lot.

Last time, I put some chopped green onion on top which was yummy. Anyhow. This combines my favorite food: cheese, with my favorite meat other than steak and bacon: chicken. And then veggies so it is healthy, right? Right.

There you go. First recipe. Done.