Creamy Chicken Chowder

My husband, Derek, and I like to make soup on the weekends with the intent of it using it as our lunch throughout the week. For the past few months, he's been making a vegetable soup and it's been very good. However, it was getting rather repetitive and I kept finding myself going to the cafeteria at work at least once a week. Oops. I decided to change things up and make a different soup to throw into the mix. This is the first time I'm trying out this recipe. The following recipe was adapted from Taste of Home's Cream Cheese Chicken Soup. Cream Cheese Chicken Soup
I've made a few changes to tailor our tastes.

Ingredients List:
3 chicken breasts (I used Perdue's no hormone, no steroid added)
4 medium carrot, cut into slices
2 medium potatoes, cubed
1 small onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups of corn
Fat Free cream cheese (8oz)
2 cans low sodium chicken broth
1 TBSP butter
1 cup skim milk
1/4 cup all purpose flour
Any spice you want (black pepper and cayenne for me!)

Directions:

1.) Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Place chicken on baking sheet and put in the oven once it has preheated. Bake for 12 minutes on each side, ensuring that chicken is cooked all the way through.

2.) While the chicken is baking, you have plenty of time to wash and prepare your vegetables. I have a vegetable brush specifically for washing my vegetables. Make sure to get all the dirt and possible toxins off of the outer surface of your veggie. I cut my carrots about 1/6 of an inch thick, and I cubed my potatoes. Some people prefer to peel their potatoes, but I don't usually bother. If you prefer peeled, by all means, peel away! Then, I used my handy dandy slap-chop to chop up my onions. This is a solid method to prevent those pesky onion tears.

3.) At this point your chicken should be good to go. Cube the chicken into small pieces. Now we're ready to make the chowder!

4.) Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large pot on the stove. Once melted, add the chopped onion and sauté for several minutes, thoroughly coating the onion.

5.) Add the chicken broth, potatoes, and carrots to the pot. Bring the contents to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat, cover, and let it stew for fifteen-twenty minutes as the vegetables cook.

Derek was making Cincinnati chili in the pot next door :)



6.) Once the vegetables are tender it's time to add the chicken! In this step I also added black pepper from my pepper grinder to give it a little spice. Let the chicken soak in the mixture for a few minutes to thoroughly heat.

7.) Mix the milk and flour in a bowl until smooth. This will help thicken the chowder. Add to the pot, bring to a boil, all the while continuously stirring the soup. Once it it as a boil, let it sit for a few minutes until it has thickened. Keep stirring!!! Once it has thickened, reduce the heat to low.

8.) Cube the cream cheese and add to the pot. Continue stirring until all of the cheese is melted and mixed in.

9.) At this point, I thought the dish was rather bland. Not only do I like my books to have some spice, but my food needs heat, as well. I added more black pepper and some cayenne pepper to spice things up.

10.) This made six 1-cup servings, with a calorie count of 227 calories per serving.

Enjoy!!

Footnote: While getting my pot out, my grumpy cat, Nick found a hole and decided to explore under the cabinets. It took twenty minutes for him to get bored.