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 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 it to us for posting. Thanks!