Cream soup -- GFCF & soy-free too!

I don't know where it came from, but my oldest daughter (7) not too long ago asked me to make cream soup for her. I don't think she'd ever had cream soup. And, us adults don't really make cream soup. So, it was one of those out-of-left-field moments. But, it was enough of a challenge to get me thinking of how to do it. As many of you know, we're not just GFCF, we're also soy-free. So, it's not like we can just jog down to the store and buy some. Anyway, I found a recipe and tinkered with it a little bit and I think it was successful. My daughter loved it and ate cream of chicken soup for two days. I'm not opposed to variety! I also did one better, I made it in the crock pot over the weekend. So, I dumped the food in the pot, turned it on, and left it all afternoon. I love 'easy' too.

So, here's what I did. You might tinker more with the "cream" ingredients to fit your family's diet needs and preferences. For example, I used DariFree and corn starch. You might prefer rice milk or almond milk. And, you might avoid corn, so try potato starch or tapioca.

1 onion, chopped into chunks
sea salt and black pepper to taste
1 tsp basil
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp sage
About 2-3 pounds of chicken -- any kind you prefer (I used bone-in breasts with the skin removed and later, pulled the meat off and diced it into small pieces)
2-3 garlic pieces, crushed
5 1/2 cups of water
CF milk (I used DariFree -- I plan to try this with rice milk)
Corn starch -- GF of course

Place all ingredients, except the CF milk and corn starch in the slow cooker. Cook for four hours on high or 8-9 hours on low. Either way, I usually start the first hour on high.

When near-done, pull chicken out and cool. Remove meat from bones. I diced the meat into small pieces and put it back in the cooker.

Before serving, I pulled out the onions, since my kids won't eat them.

Now, to make the cream soup. I took about 2 cup servings and poured them from the crok into a small stove-top pot. I turned the heat onto low-medium.

In a small bowl, I put 1 tbsp of the corn starch and 2 tbsp of cold water and mixed with a fork until runny. I poured this into the pot and stirred.

Watch as this will thicken the soup quickly.

Once thickened, I poured about 1/4 cup of the CF milk into the mix and heated another minute or two.

The end result was a tasty chicken soup, thickened by the starch and "whitened" by the milk. Perfect.

Give it a shot.

A couple of notes ...

- first, this of course is easy to freeze too. If you like the basic soup in the crok, freeze it in portions, like in ice cube trays, for example.

- second, if you don't remove the skins, you'll need to take the added step of cooling the broth and removing some of the fat.

- last, if your child likes certain foods, this is a great way to get them in. Carrots, celery, mushrooms, potatoes, rice, etc. You can make just about cream of anything.