Leftovers magician

One of my favorite cooking challenges is to take a look in the refrigerator and whip up something using leftovers.  I feel resourceful and not wasteful, and I get to try something new. Usually I check the Epicurious app to search by ingredient, but I had been looking through one of my old cookbooks called Quick Food, which had a recipe for a chicken and risoni soup, which I decided to modify in order to use up the large amount of orzo in my fridge. This is a healthy and hearty soup, great for consuming on a cold winter day! I recommend serving the soup with a nice green salad.

Chicken orzo soup, adapted from Quick Food

A generous portion of orzo in the soup

Ingredients:

48 oz. low-sodium chicken broth (or 1 box chicken broth and 1/2 box low-sodium vegetable broth)
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed

8 ounces boneless skinless chicken breast tenderloins, cut into small pieces

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 stalks celery, chopped
1 medium white onion, chopped
1/2 box orzo
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon dill, preferably fresh
Sea salt, to taste
Black pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. Heat 2 teaspoons oil in a large pot over medium heat.
2. Add the chopped onion, celery, and carrot and cook until almost tender.
3. Add the garlic and cumin, cook about 2 minutes.
4. Pour in the stock, increase the heat to high, and bring to a boil.
5. Reduce the heat to low, add the chicken, and simmer, with the pot covered for 8 minutes.
6. Remove the chicken from the pot and transfer to a bowl.
7. Add orzo to the broth and simmer 7-12 minutes, until the pasta is al dente.
8. Return the chicken to the broth, and add dill and salt and pepper to taste.

Some notes: 

I already had the orzo cooked, so I skipped steps 6 and 7, and added the orzo to the finished broth. Since I only had 36 ounces of chicken broth on hand, I added 16 ounces of vegetable broth.  The flavors are more complex than what a simple chicken stock provides, feel free to give the mixture a try.