A Recipe and a Read: Tasty Tomato Chicken 'n Rice Soup and A Cozy Mystery by Janis Lane...

This is the fastest and tastiest soup you’ll ever throw together. Chicken with Rice soup and stewed tomatoes alone is tasty. For more tomato flavor, use a can of diced tomatoes, but careful. This tends to overbalance the tomato too much and obscures that lovely chicken rice childhood memory taste. Everything you add after that improves the mixture, or you can serve it just like that warmed. It is a tasty combination.  

You can, of course, make a much more complicated soup. I give you this recipe for the day when time is of the essence, and you are already tired.

Keep ready-made roles or biscuits in the refrigerator for just such an occasion and grab them to bake first. 

Tomato Chicken ’n Rice

1 can Campbell’s Chicken with Rice soup 

1 can stewed tomatoes 

1 med. onion, chopped 

½ stalk celery, chopped 

Dash salt to taste 

Dash dried oregano

1 small can corn kernels

1 small can green peas 

Optional Ingredients:

Any leftover veggies like green beans or asparagus, lima beans, cut small. Bits of leftover meat: pork, ground beef, and breakfast sausage, chicken. Whatever is left. 

Add water to desired consistency only at the beginning. 

Now put all your ingredients together and simmer until the onions and celery are opaque. Should be about ready when the roles are nice and brown. Serve with hot roles, biscuits and butter, and a lettuce salad with dressing. Garnish soup with grated cheese. Put a petite bouquet on the table and enjoy your lunch or light dinner. Plan for a renewing nap later. 

For dessert, two scopes of ice cream over half a banana drizzled with chocolate syrup. 

This luncheon can serve four to six medium bowls of soup for adults or a mob of small various sized children.

Here's a peek at my Cozy Mystery, Murder in the Neighborhood, a novel which introduces you to Detective Kevin Fowler and the intriguing murders which infect this small-town Americana. The series follows the detective, colleagues, friends, and lovers through a whirlwind of events, good and bad, over the next three novels.

A killer is attacking respectable citizens in picturesque Hubbard, NY, and leaving corpses on their front steps in the middle of the day. Detective Fowler isn’t certain who causes him to lose the most sleep, a certain sexy reporter with bouncing curls and sparkling black eyes, or the elusive psychopath creating panic in his small-town community. Together, the detective and the reporter race to find the monster in their midst and return the town to the desirable place where people come to raise their families in peace and contentment. Can they sort through their differences to find romance even as they search for a determined stalker with murder on his mind? The clock ticks down on a man in a rage with a deadly mission.

Amazon Buy Links Kindle - Paperback

Read more of the cozy mysteries by

Janis Lane on Amazon

Janis Lane is the penname for gifted author Emma Lane who writes cozy mysteries as Janis, Regency as Emma, and spice as Sunny Lane.

She lives in Western New York where winter is snowy, spring arrives with rave reviews, summer days are long and velvet, and fall leaves are riotous in color. At long last she enjoys the perfect bow window for her desk where she is treated to a year-round panoramic view of nature. Her computer opens up a fourth fascinating window to the world. Her patient husband is always available to help with a plot twist and encourage Emma to never quit. Her day job is working with flowers at Herbtique and Plant Nursery, the nursery she and her son own.

Look for information about writing and plants on Emma's new website. Leave a comment or a gardening question and put a smile on Emma's face.

Stay connected to Emma on Facebook and Twitter. Be sure to check out the things that make Emma smile on Pinterest.