Mullagatawny Soup

I've been a lazy, sluggabed lately.
Which translates to: I have been cooking, but not writing about it. 
Yep, I cook and take pictures of food but don't finish all the niceties of a food blog post. 
There are worse things to be.

So, I went out to Wickipedia to see what they said about Mulligatawny... or Mullagatawny or whatever it is.

Per Wikipedia.... this soup is translated literally from Tamil, "Mulligatawny" or "Milagu thanni" means "pepper water" ("Millagu" means pepper and "thanni" means water). The dish the Anglo-Indians call "pepper water" is actually closer to Tamil ரசம்-rasam (pronounced russ-um) than "mulligatawny".

Blah, blah, blah... it means some Englishman probably invented it in India.

I like what Dr. Suess says much, much more....
Dr. Seuss used the term to refer to a fanciful creature in his book If I Ran the Zoo. The young zookeeper wannabe says, “I’ll capture them wild and I’ll capture them scrawny, I’ll capture a scraggle-foot mulligatawny.”

Now, doesn't THAT make you want to eat soup?
If not, maybe knowing that this soup is easy and delicious will do it for you???

Serves about 4-6 scraggle-foot mulligatawnies... I mean people.
Ingredients

1 Tbsp oil, or butter
1 bell pepper, diced
1/2 onion, diced
2 large (or 12 mini) carrot,diced
1 cup celery, diced
1-2 cups chicken (or turkey), cubed and cooked
1 green apple, peeled and diced
2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp thyme, dried
1/2 cup long grain rice
1 Tbsp sugar
6 cups chicken stock
Water, as needed

Saute all the veggies in the oil (or butter) over medium heat for about 5 minutes, until they start to soften.  

Add the apples, chicken and all the spices. Stir until the chicken starts to turn white, but no need to cook it all the way through.  The next step will take care of that...

Add the broth and the rice and reduce heat to medium low, cooking for about 20 minutes until the rice is cooked through.  Stirring occasionally.  Taste, adding salt, pepper and sugar, as needed.  I do NOT usually add sugar to soup, but this kind of needed a sweet little kick to bring out the veggies, apple and curry flavors.

If you cook this too long, the rice will break down and continue to thicken the soup.  That's not bad, at all, but you may need to add more water to get it to the right consistency.

Some people add cream to their Mullagatawny, but I don't think it needs that extra fat. It's up to you...

This would be a great recipe to have for after Thanksgiving leftovers.