Cream of chicken and wild rice soup

It's snowing and I'm thinking about comfort food, specifically Panera's cream of chicken soup. I like the soup at Panera, but it tastes a little of garlic powder and I wanted to improve it, so I started searching for an easy recipe that would replicate it. Voila! Combining a couple of recipes I found online, plus a little improvisation and this is what happened. It's good, worth saving, and really easy--one pot. I made a big pot of soup, probably about 12 or more servings. 

See what you think.

Cream of Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

What you’ll need

1 cup chopped carrots

1 cup chopped celery

2 medium sweet onions, chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil 

6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup fresh spinach leaves, chopped

8 cups chicken stock (or water with 2 TBS Penzey’s chicken base)

2 cups milk

1 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon dried oregano

2 bay leaves

2 cups milk

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 4.3-ounce boxes of Rice-a-Roni Long Grain and Wild Rice with seasoning packet

How to do it

Place the carrots, celery, onion, and olive oil in a large Dutch oven or soup pot.

Allow to simmer over medium heat for 5 minutes or until the onions are translucent.

Add chopped chicken and cook for another 5 minutes.

Add garlic, spinach, chicken stock, and 2 cups of milk to the mixture and blend.

Add pepper, oregano, and bay leaves.

Mix and allow soup to simmer over medium heat for 15 minutes.

Whisk together the other 2 cups of milk with flour until smooth. Whisk into soup.

Place rice and seasoning packets into soup and mix until combined.

Simmer for 20 minutes or until rice is tender. Add a little milk or water if too thick.