Creamy Wild Rice Soup

From: A dear friend, Ashley Martin, over at Adventures in Twinderland, shared this recipe with me.  Wow is it deeeeee-licious!!

Ingredients:

1/2 or 1 large onion minced
6 garlic cloves or 1 Tbsp dried minced garlic
diced celery (to your liking - I used about a cup)
sliced carrots (to your liking - I used about 1 1/2 cups)
4 Tbsp butter (I may have used a whole butter stick. ;)  )
1 cup wild rice
1 cup of long grain rice
1/2 cup of flour
6 cups chicken stock or water with bullion (I used 5 cups of water with 6 cubes of bullion so it would have lots of flavor but be more like rice and less like soup - only because I was on a soup fettish and cooked soup 4 times in a week)
chicken or turkey cooked (optional)
crumbled cooked turkey bacon (half of a package)
salt and pepper to taste
2/3 cup cream
Parmesan cheese to taste

How to:  

Mince the onion, garlic, celery, and carrots and saute with half of the butter until it's softened and cooked through.

Then melt in the rest of the butter. Add 1 cup of wild rice and 1 cup of long grain rice and cook for a few minutes. Then add 1/2 a cup of flour and mix in, let it cook for a few minutes. Next, add in the chicken stock or water with bouillon and put a lid on the pot, let it simmer for about half an hour or until the rice is cooked and tender (but obviously wild rice still has some crunch to it).

If you want to add pre-cooked chicken or turkey, now is the time to add it along with the crumbled bacon. At this point, I taste-tested and was so in love with the taste that I didn't even add the rest of the ingredients, plus it's right after the holidays and I'm trying to eat healthier.  Ha!

But this would also be delicious:  Ashley says to mix in about 2/3 a cup of cream, and then add Parmesan, salt and freshly grated pepper to taste. Add extra chicken bouillon if needed but it you probably don't need it. Enjoy!  I sure did!