Ray R.’s Chicken Stew
We have a favorite soup recipe, made as follows:
Chicken Stew
16 c Water – for a soup instead of a thick stew make this 20 to 24 cups – we use water from our Berkey filter since it tastes better.
16 tsp Knorr tomato/chicken bouillon – adds a great flavor.
25 oz boneless skinless chicken – this can be fresh, frozen, or home canned – it is about a quart of my home canned chicken.
1 c Dry pearled barley – we buy these in 25 lbs sacks at Restaurant Depot which we first learned of from SurvivalBlog. We pack then into canning jars and vacuum seal then with a Food Saver using the wide mouth canning jar
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2 c dry lentils – again purchased in 25 lbs sacks at Restaurant Depot.
2 tbs dried onions – substitute fresh if you have it
1 tbs minced garlic
Large dash Maggi seasoning to taste – adds a great meaty flavor – we use the USA produced stuff made by Nestle, but it is made in many countries, and most Asian supermarkets carry it and Asian made copies. Maggi is sort of a wheat-based soy-flavored sauce product, but with no soy.
2 cans white beans – we have been using beans from the LDS [1] cannery. Since they are no longer doing wet pack canning we will have to find another source or go to dried beans soaked overnight.
2 cans Rotel – the smaller size cans not the large restaurant sized cans.
2 cans diced tomatoes
25 oz fresh carrots – or the equivalent in dried carrots
Bring all of the above to a boil, then turn the heat down to a low simmer.
Simmer at least a couple of hours or as long as all day. We can fit a half recipe in our crock pot.
Wait 1/2 to 1 hour before serving add the Spinach.
7 oz fresh spinach or the equivalent in dried spinach.
Chef’s Notes:
Yields about 29 cups of stew (about 120 calories per cup), or a few more servings if you started with more water.
My wife likes this as is. I spice it up in my bowl with a with a few dashes of Liquid Smoke, and some Chipotle Smoked Tabasco sauce.
Do you have a favorite recipe that you have tested extensively? Then please e-mail [2] it to us for posting. Thanks!