Chicken Vegetable Stewp

Pictures aren't doing this justice. This was one of the finer tasting things I've made. Lot's of simple ingredients seasoned with nothing more than salt and pepper. It's the first cool, rainy night of autumn. Easy soup night.

Yes, more soup. But THIS time... more flavor. So much flavor and. . .texture(?), that it's kind of a cross between a soup and a stew. I'll call it a Stewp.

At Trader Joes. Picked up some essentials and got some good ideas along the way walking through the produce isle.

Home: diced a whole medium onion, chopped two medium yellow squash, 4 sticks of celery, 3 carrots, minced 5 small cloves of garlic. Sautee.

Took two medium boneless skinless chicken breasts, and cross cut them through the middle (they were a little thick). Salt, peppered, pan seared, put to the side.

Dumped a large can of diced tomatoes in a pot with a pint of chicken broth. Added the sauteed veggies, let them all simmer for 20 mins. Turned off the heat and broke out the immersible. Pureed all this goodness. At this point, by the way, two neighbors had forced their way upstairs and in to my kitchen because they could smell what was emanating from these pots and pans from all the way across the street. Of course they were welcomed to partake.

So now that I've blended everything down to one bold complex flavor, I separately sauteed some more roughly cut vegetables so there'd be some bite to this stew. Yellow squash, crimini mushrooms, carrots. Once they were cooked, I added them to the pot. Shredded three of the chicken breasts and added that to the pot. I also added a can of white kidney beans - it adds a little starch and well, there's a bean for just about any situation.

I let this all simmer down for a while, tasting along the way. Again, I only seasoned with salt and pepper, but I seasoned all of the steps individually, so that all the ingredients were seasoned just right on their own. Ultimately I didn't need to add any salt or pepper to the big pot because of this. However, the ultimate product tasted almost like I added chili powder or some additional heat. Kind of unexplainable.

For me, the test of how good something is, particularly soup, is how hard of a time I have putting it away. If it's good, I'm probably already in 3 bowls deep - but if I can't keep the spoon out of the pot on the way to the fridge, it's probably pretty dang good. So a dark rainy Monday night became a leisurely, soupy, chicken vegetable stew-filled bowl of hearty October. And actually I'm enjoying the rain, which is such a rarity. Of course, I just washed my car two days ago, so now it's spotty and muddy. But. . . ahhh chicken vegetable stewp.