Turkey and Wild Rice Soup

Where's the 6-star rating when I need one? Because this soup deserves all 6 stars I would give it. SO GOOD! My beloved mother-in-law made this soup for our Christmas Eve gathering and I've been craving it ever since. I just thought it would be so hard to make plus I'd have to roast that turkey and all. Not the case at all. Simple soup to put together - took less than 30 minutes and tasted like I ran out to SoHo and brought it home. Yeah, it's that good. (Recipe is also from Taste of Home as well as this picture)

Ingredients:
1 medium onion, chopped
2 celery ribs, diced
2 carrots, diced
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup flour
4 cups turkey or chicken broth
2 cups cooked wild rice (I used Uncle Ben's Sun dried Tomato Wild rice - 1 pkg)
2 cups half and half
2 cups diced cooked turkey
1 tsp. parsley flakes
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

Directions:
(1) Open the package of Uncle Ben's wild rice and cook according to package directions. Set aside. (2) In a large kettle, saute onion, celery and carrots in butter/margarine until onion is transparent. Reduce heat.
(3) Blend in flour and cook until bubbly. Gradually add broth 1 cup at a time stirring constantly.
(4) Bring to a boil; boil for 1 minute.
(5) Reduce heat and add wild rice, half and half, turkey, parsley, salt and pepper.
(6) Simmer for 20 minutes..
(7) Serve hot with artisan bread.

Helpful Hints:
(1) I just used my left over turkey which made it even simpler!

Creamy Tomato Basil Soup

Who needs Panera when you can make this kind of soup at home? And it's literally a 10-minute meal. My friend Nicole came across this recipe, only she uses the Roasted Red Pepper sauce - which is equally as wonderful. Tonight I toasted up some chicken panini's on artisan cheese bread and it was almost as if we were in Panera....only not really.

Ingredients:

1 jar of Tomato Basil Pasta Sauce - Archer Farms brand

1- 14.5 oz can of chicken broth

1/4 cup of heavy cream

Directions:

(1) In a medium saucepan combine the pasta sauce and chicken broth. Bring to a boil.

(2) Just before serving whisk in heavy cream.

(3) Serve hot.

Helpful Hints:

(1) There are some people in my family (I'm not going to mention names, but everybody but me) has issues with texture and food. When I make this again I will most likely take the pasta sauce and put it in my blender and puree it until there are no "little pieces" anymore.

(2) Must serve it with a hot sandwich like a panini because it is that good.