Creamy Chicken & Rice Soup (a leftovers recipe!)

I've found the absolute best ever use of leftovers. Best. EVER!
We make chicken fairly often in our house... strangely enough because it has suddenly become cheaper than ground beef. Weird!
A frequent pairing to chicken is rice. It goes together so well! I came across a garlic ranch chicken with rice recipe and I wanted to give it a try but the recipe made WAAAAY more food than we could eat (this was my suspicion right away but we like having leftovers!) so I decided to use the leftovers to make a whole new meal. I was completely wingin' it and it turned out so wonderfully delicious and it was basically free because I used almost all leftovers!

Now, the veggies part of this recipe is completely flexible. I used a cup of diced celery (that was in my freezer) and a big handful of rough chopped baby carrots that were hanging out in my veggie drawer. You could use any veggie on hand: celery, carrots, broccoli, corn, peas, cauliflower... or just leave the vegetables out. I won't tell!

You'll need:

1 boneless chicken breast, diced (leftover)
2 cups cooked rice (leftover)
2 cups any veggies (leftover)

4 tbsp butter

6 tbsp flour

3 cups milk

2 cups water

2 chicken bouillon cubes

salt

pepper

garlic powder

onion powder

In a pan, melt the butter over medium high heat. Whisk in flour a tablespoon at a time until combined into a paste (we're making a roux because we are fancy frugal!). Cook for a minute or so until slightly browned. Whisk in milk about a 1/2 cup at a time. Keep the whisk in constant motion so that it all blends well and you don't end up with chunks. The roux will go through texture stages: Mashed potato to frosting to gravy. Once it reaches the gravy stage go ahead and dump the remaining milk in. Dust the cream sauce with salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder. Let it simmer on a low setting stirring frequently. In a large pot, saute vegetables of choice in oil (or butter) for a few minutes. Add water and bouillon cubes, bring to a boil then turn down to a simmer. Once the vegetables are tender mix in the cream sauce. Add in chicken and rice. Mix well and salt/pepper to taste. Once the rice has been added you might need to add more water until you reach desired consistency since it will be much thicker!  Serve immediately.

This makes a LOT of soup... you can also stretch it even further by adding more water or milk to make it as loose as you'd like. As it sits it makes approximately 8 cups of hearty soup! For almost FREE!