The other night Alfredo had a hanker’n for some soup. I love it when he has something specific in mind because it makes my job easier. I had all the ingredients for a chicken soup – all I had to do was pick up a baguette & a roasted garlic loaf to make the meal more substantial.

Below is what I made. This soup was inspired by a soup we had about 5 years ago when we lived in Vancouver, BC. There is a restaurant named Stepho’s Souvlaki Greek Taverna on Davie Street that we started frequenting about once a week because everything was so D-lish & easy on the pocket. The first time we saw Stepho’s & the crowd waiting to go inside we thought “What a bunch of dorks!” It was cold, raining & the line went down the block. Little did we know that we would be doing the same on a regular basis with both of our kids in tow. Oh well. I call my version of the soup Californian instead of Greek because the lemons were freshly picked by my neighbor just that morning & the rosemary was trimmed from my backyard that afternoon.

Californian Lemon Chicken Soup

• 4-5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 2 lemons
• Fresh Rosemary
• Olive Oil
• 1 Carrot, diced
• 1 Celery stalk, diced
• 1 lg Shallot, diced
• ½ gallon (8 cups) chicken broth
• ½ cup uncooked Rice
• 2 eggs

Heat oven to 350. Lightly coat bottom of baking dish with olive oil, place breast in dish, salt & pepper to taste, cover with lemon slices & sprigs of rosemary. Bake for 1 hour. Once baking is complete, dice.

In large pot sauté carrots, celery & shallots in olive oil until golden. Add broth, bring to a boil & add rice. Let simmer for ½ hour. Optional: add a bit of finely diced fresh rosemary. Add chicken & keep warm, but not at a steady simmer.

In three separate bowls place egg whites, egg yolks & juice of one lemon. Whisk the egg whites until they start to look fluffy, add slightly whisked yolks, and then add lemon juice. One ladle at a time, add some soup to this mixture until you have about 4 ladlefuls in the bowl. Then, add this mixture to your soup. Soup complete!