Cookbook Chronicles: Chicken & Wild Rice Soup

Cookbook Chronicles is an on-going series at The Bookery. Over the course of the next year, we'll delve into Joanna Gaines' first cookbook, Magnolia Table, trying one recipe per month.

The recipe: Chicken & Wild Rice Soup

The cookbook: Magnolia Table by Joanna Gaines, page 105

The details: This recipe—while it involves a significant amount of chopping—is easier than it looks. I like making soups, and while this one isn't one of those recipes where you can dump a bunch of ingredients together and walk away, it's pretty straightforward and easy to understand. Using the packages of precooked rice speed things up—unless you're like me and don't defrost your chicken soon enough and have to spend way too long defrosting it in the microwave.

The recipe calls for 1/2 cup diced white onion and 1/2 cup diced celery. I think it would have been helpful to include an estimate of how many ribs of celery or how much of a normal-sized sized onion you need to create those amounts. I chopped half of an onion, and it was probably a little less than a cup (which I used anyway). For me, three ribs from a celery heart resulted in 1/2 cup chopped celery.

The adjustments: As always, I can't leave a good recipe alone!

• I chose not to use the bay leaf, not for any other reason than they were in the back of the spice cabinet and I didn't feel like digging them out.

• I omitted the white wine.

• I didn't have heavy cream, so I used 2 cups of 2 percent milk.

• I probably let the "flavors come together" for a bit too long. But just as I entered this final stage, my dog came into the kitchen begging for a walk, and I just couldn't say no to his pleading eyes! The longer simmer probably helped the soup to thicken a little more, though, so I can't complain!

The verdict: I liked it! At first, I thought it needed a touch more salt, then realized that I had inadvertently skipped the final step of adding the remaining salt and pepper from the ingredient list. Joanna also describes this soup as kid-friendly—but most of the kids in my life would balk at anything involving mushrooms. So props to Joanna for encouraging her kids to try foods with different flavors and textures.

Up next month: Aunt Opal's Banana pudding, page 287

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