Mashed Honeyed Carrots - Creative Mistake

I set out to make honey carrots in my crock pot, but in my focus to make Pumpkin Soup, I dropped the ball with the carrots.  I meant to cook in the slow cooker for a couple of hours and then pick up where I left off for a few more when I got to work, but I accidentally left it on all night on low - over 6 hours!  Needless to say, they were soft in the morning...but still tasted good.

I brought my little crock pot to work and was pretty embarrassed by the results, but what can I do...I promised to bring carrots.  As I sat at my desk, lamenting at my terrible mistake, I made a decision...I'm making Mashed Honeyed Carrots and telling everyone that was what I intended to do!  Well, except for I told everyone about my mistake, but that's me...I'm not good at lying.

Okay, Ingredients:

2 lbs Baby Carrots
5 tbsp Honey
5 pads of Butter

Directions for crock pot:

Put carrots, honey and butter in and turn on.   The end.

LOL!  Okay, I set it on low and accidentally left on overnight (over 6 hours).  I would have shut it off after a couple of hours and plugged it in the lunch room after my first break, set it to low and it would have been perfect for lunch.  But, I'm me...so this is what I ended up with...mushy carrots.

And then, as I sat at my desk, I remembered that there was a potato masher in the break room and I ran down there with my brilliant idea of Mashed Honeyed Carrots...yeah, sounds like I meant to do that...except that I had already ratted myself out!  Oh, well...I committed to this new idea wholeheartedly and mashed the heck out of those carrots!  

And my Mashed Honeyed Carrots was born...

I removed some excess liquid out so it wasn't soupy and I did take the lid off and turned it up on high to reduce some of the liquids down.

Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

I've been sick the last few days and wanted chicken soup...as per my usual, I altered a recipe I found to suit my needs.  It tasted really good and was a great comfort soup for when I was feeling really sick!  Hope you like it as much as I did!

 

Ingredients:

2 Chicken Breasts or 4 Chicken Thighs 
4 cups Water 
4 cups Chicken Broth 
4 Carrots - cut (I bought the pre-crinkle cut ones)
4 stalks Celery - cut 
1 can Diced Tomatoes 
1 package quick cooking Long Grain and Wild Rice with seasoning packet 
Salt & Pepper 
3/4 cup Flour 
1/2 cup Butter 
2 cups Heavy Cream 

Directions:

Boil chicken in 4 cups of water - add salt, pepper, garlic, onion, garlic powder and chicken bouillon until almost cooked. After it boils for a bit, I lower the heat to control the cooking. 

Pull chicken out and put in carrots and celery. Add the chicken broth. 

Cut chicken into bite size pieces or do what I do and take two forks and pull it apart - put back in soup. Bring to a boil, stir in rice (leaving seasoning packet out), cover and turn off heat. 

In a small bowl, mix flour, salt and pepper. In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium heat and stir in seasoning packet until mixed and bubbly, reduce heat to low and start mixing in the flour mixture little by little to form a roux. Slowly whisk in heavy cream little by little until mixed and smooth. Cook until thickened - about 5 minutes. 

Add cream mixture into soup pot and bring to a boil and reduce to medium heat and cook for about 15 minutes - stirring occasionally to prevent rice from sticking to the bottom.