Wild Rice Soup

I am so excited this is my first "Real" post on my new blog! So, I thought that I would post a new recipe that I tried on Saturday night! This is a great soup for those rainy days! I found it in this new Gooseberry Patch Magazine that we bought at Lowes the other day! Hope ya'll enjoy!

Wild Rice Soup

2 Boxes of Uncle Ben's Long Grain Wild Rice Original Recipe (the original recipe of this soup calls for 1/2 cup wild rice uncooked, but we liked a little more rice so I just used the box rice)

1 lb. of bacon (again, we cut back on the bacon- I used about 4 oz., but you can add as much or little compared to your family's love of bacon!)

1 cup onion, chopped

3/4 cup celery, chopped

1/3 cup green pepper, chopped

2 cans of 14 oz. chicken broth

2 cans of 10 oz. cream of mushroom soup

4 oz. can of sliced mushrooms

1 pint half and half

Cook Wild Rice according to package directions, and set aside. Cut bacon into 2 inch pieces and fry until crisp in a medium size frying pan (the actual recipe says dutch oven, but since we do not have one, I'm just going to tell how I did it). Remove bacon from pan (I put the bacon in a small bowl with a papertowel to remove some of the grease). Discard all but 3 tablespoons of drippings. Saute` onion, celery, and pepper in bacon drippings until onion is transparent. Add rice, broth, soup, mushrooms, bacon, and half-and-half (this is the way that I did it, but the original recipe says to add the half and half before serving) to your crockpot (or dutch oven if you have one). Cover and cook over low heat for one hour. If you use a crockpot, start on high heat until the soup is hot and the canned soup is diluted. Then, cook on low heat until ready to eat! Makes 10 cups!

As found in the Gooseberry Patch Christmas 2009