Recipe: Zesty Cream of Chicken-and-Stuff Soup

The actual full title of my invention is "Zesty Cream of Chicken and Potato Soup Type Thing With Other Stuff and Things In It", but the wife says that's not a very practical name, so I'll use "Zesty Cream of Chicken-and-Stuff Soup" for short. This makes a fantastic relatively healthy meal that may be eaten with bread, crackers, or as a compliment to salad and sammiches. It serves 4 and can be prepared in just one frying pan and one medium sauce pan. Takes about 1 hour to prepare but can be stretched out longer if need be. The longer you let the final product sit, the better it'll taste.

Ingrediants
2 cans of Cream of Chicken Soup
1.5 cans of water (using the soup cans)
3 deboned and skinned chicken breasts
2 large radishes
3 new potatos
2 stalks of celery
1 can of RoTel Original (or equiv. diced tomatos and green peppers)
4 medium-sized mushrooms
1/2 Sweet Onion
1 cup of frozen peas (or corn)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Ground Pepper
Garlic Salt
Tony Cachere's Creole Seasoning
Bay leaves
Basil
Italian Seasoning (a premix most spice companies make)
1 tsp Gumbo fille

Directions

1. Fill saucepan about half full with water, add a few bay leaves, and bring to boil on stove.
   
2. Peel and dice the new potatoes. By now the water should be boiling. Add the potatos to the water. Stir occasionally.
   
3. Dice the radishes, then add them, along with the peas, to the water and potatos.
   
4. Cover bottom of frying pan in thin coat of olive oil.
   
5. Sprinkle garlic salt, creole seasoning, and pepper evenly on the oil's surface.
   
6. Sprinkle garlic salt, creole seasoning, and pepper evenly on both sides of the chicken breasts.
   
7. Cook chicken in the pan. For maximum flavor and juiciness, cover the pan with a lid that does not have a hole to trap in all the steam. This way your chicken will not dry out and will concentrate the spices within a bit better. With this kind of lid, you will need to slow-cook the chicken at about half the normal temperature you'd use uncovered, as the lid will also trap a great deal more heat.
   
8. While chicken is cooking and the other stuff is boiling, slice the mushrooms, dice the onion and the celery, and set aside. By the time you finish all this, it should be time to flip the chicken breasts if you're slow-cooking them.
   
9. After flipping the chickens, use a collander or strainer to dump the contents of the sauce pan into, getting rid of the water. Set the potatoes, radishes, and bay leaves to the side for the moment.
   
10. Dump the cream of chicken soup and the 1.5 cans of water into the now empty sauce pan. Begin to heat on just over medium, stirring occasionally. If you cover the sauce pan with a lid with no holes, heat on just under medium.
    
11. Add mushrooms, celery, and onions to the soup. Stir thoroughly, then re-cover.
    
12. The chicken should be done by now, take out the thickest breast, and cut into the thickest portion. If it's white, they're all done. Take the chickens out and dice 'em up.
    
13. Add the chicken, potatoes, peas, radishes, and bay leaves to the soup. Stir thoroughly.
    
14. Add basil, italian seasoning, and gumbo fille to the soup. Stir thoroughly and re-cover until soup begins to boil.
    
15. As soup begins to boil, stir thoroughly, and lower temperature to just above low, and then re-cover. Stir thoroughly again in about 2 minutes, then re-cover.
    
16. Taste and adjust spicing as needed, then stir thoroughly and re-cover.
    
17. Stir soup every 10 minutes until ready to serve.
    

The result should be a delicious thick, spicy, healthy meal that can wait as long as need be before serving.