FFC: Chicken Noodle Soup with Cheesy Garlic Bread

January 25, 2008 at 5:09 pm | Posted in Breads, Chicken, Frugal Foodie Challenge, Soup | 4 Comments

My good friend L is hosting her first food blog event this month and even though G was sick all week and I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off I knew I needed to support her. Basically the goal of the Frugal Foodie Challenge is to make dinner for 2 with a specific ingredient and spend less than $7.

This month we bring you Mozzarella.

What does a slacker make with mozarella when her sick hubby wants soup and she gets home late from work?

Cheesy Garlic Bread!

Personally, I would eat only garlic bread for dinner, but I didn’t think that would fly for the contest and G was whining about wanting soup. So I went for Chicken Noodle, actually chicken and orzo because that’s the pasta I felt like using. One itty bitty tip though, don’t accidentally dump the whole box of orzo in the pot when you’re yelling at your dog. My soup ended up more like pasta with a chicken broth sauce. But I will request that when L recreates my wonderful dish she only uses half the box because that wasn’t my fault and it wasn’t intended to come out that way. I blame my dog, it’s her fault and I shouldn’t be penalized for having a dog with ADD.

Chicken and Orzo Soup

4 carrots peeled and sliced

1/2 white onion chopped

48oz can reduced sodium chicken broth

6 chicken tenderloins or approx 2 chicken breasts diced

1/2 box orzo pasta

1-2 tsp Thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

-Put Chicken, Onion and Carrots in a pot with EVOO and let simmer until the chicken has browned up a little

-add thyme

– add broth salt and pepper and let boil until the carrots are almost tender and chicken is cooked through.

– add pasta and cook until pasta is done

-put it in a bowl and gobble it up

Garlic Bread

1/2 cup butter (softened)

3 cloves of minced garlic

1 tbsp parsley

-Put it all in a bowl, mix it up and put it on a both sides of a sliced roll/baguette or whatever else you can find.

-Stick it in the oven for about 10 minutes at 325 degrees. Once the butter mixture has melted and the bread has started to crust up a little sprinkle the top of the bread with shredded mozzarella.

-Cook another 3-5 minutes until cheese is melted and your done!

Cost Breakdown

The soup made at least 4 servings so dinner for two would be half the cost so I divided each item by 2
organic carrots (4 carrots) – .50/2 = .25 ps L, organic ones were cheaper than non organic this week. Who would have guessed?

1/2 white onion – .23/2 = .115

48 oz can reduced sodium chicken broth – 1.50

1/3 of a package of chicken strips (6 strips) -1.25

1/2 box orzo pasta – .50/2 = .25

Thyme = pantry item

Garlic Bread

1 small (large sub size) loaf of french bread from a three pack of fresh bakery bread = .7633

1/2 cup margerine = no clue I think the big tub in the fridge was like $4 and that would make my scoop less than .25, but we’ll go with .25

3 cloves of garlic = again not a clue, I had it lying around. If I knew what a head cost I would know, but this is a prime example of me never paying attention to what I spend at the grocery store. We’re guessing .30

Parsley = pantry item

Grand Total ………. $4.6783 (and I even counted a bunch of things I had in my pantry so beat that)