Chicken Pine Nuts Veggie Soup and Herb Garden

Happy Weekend!

Hope it's going well for you all. It's snowing here ... gross!! It certainly doesn't feel like Spring that's for sure! But the good news is that it IS Spring, so the good weather is bound to come soon!

Last night with the impending snow and cold, and taking into consideration we had a bunch of fresh veggies that needed used up, soup was only fitting! I basically threw a bunch of things into a pot and came up with a delicious Chicken Pine Nut Veggie Soup.
For the majority of my "broth" I first brought some water to a boil and put in a couple tea bags. Then I put some chicken breasts on a skillet to cook. While I let the tea bags soak, and the chicken cook, it was veggie chopping time!

After that, I can't much tell you how much of anything I put in, but I can tell you what all I put in so here were the majority of the ingredients (assuming I don't forget any) ...
-Chopped chicken chicken breasts
-Chopped sweet potato
-Carrots
-Onions
-Green Pepper
-Brussels
-Broccoli
-Cauliflower
-Portobello Mushrooms
-1 can garbonzo beans
-Brown rice
-Tons of different seasonings/spices, ha ... I think I almost literally put a little bit of just about every spice/herb I had in my cupboard ... it doesn't sound like that could work, but I did it and it worked for me! ha. The ones I can think of are: onion powder, sea salt, pepper, garlic & herb, southwest chipotle, red pepper flakes, turmeric, garlic powder, and, yes, even just a dash of cinnamon
-Fresh chopped cilantro
-Raw Pine Nuts and a few raw cashews

Conclusion:
My husband and I both ended up pretty happy with this odd mix/combination and I would definitely make it again. How did the pine nuts taste in the soup? Surprisingly good! I'd never put nuts in soup before and just thought, why not? and it actually added a nice flavor and small crunch to certain bites that just really seemed to work. All the ingredients turned out to be very flavorful.

Here's mine topped with some shredded fat free cheese: I forgot to mention this but a couple months ago my mother-in-law gave us a little "herb garden" set. Ha, it was kinda funny because a little boy was going door-to-door by her house selling them (it was a little project he'd put together with his dad) so she couldn't help but buy one. Anyways, she knew we'd like it so we started our "herb garden". (Ha, it even came with the lovely paint job and all ; )
And now ... here it is at our windowsill just about needed re-potted into something bigger ... hooray! (Excuse the bad photos!) Now, Erik is cooking dinner (and it smells SO good!) and we're about to eat and watch some movies : )

Hope the duration of your weekend is WONDERFUL!! : )