Easy Chicken Pate (Chicken Spread) with a bonus of Chicken Soup

Would you like a creamy chicken  spread to put on a cracker or a piece of toast? This one can be as easy as opening a large can of cooked chicken breast, draining it (save the liquid) and whirling it in the blender with a few tablespoons of butter and a bit of the liquid to make a paste, or you can go gourmet and start with boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

If you make it from scratch, you will need:

2 chicken breasts, boneless, skinless
about 1 quart of water
1/2 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 stick of butter (prefer real butter, not margarine)
Seasoning to taste (I used about 1 tsp. poultry seasoning,  1/2 tsp. salt and a dash of black pepper)

Start with two boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Place them in a saucepan and cover them with water. Add the onion and garlic. If you have a stalk of celery and a whole carrot, dice those and add them to the broth as well. One chicken breast will become the foundation for soup that will be frozen for later use and the other will become the chicken pate.

Bring the water to a boil and then reduce heat to let the chicken cook until it is nearly falling apart.  (If you aren't going to be home, you can pop this into a 1 qt. crock pot and let it cook for 6-8 hours.) When tender, remove each breast. Dice one and return it to the broth. Set it aside for soup. Cut the other into 1-2" cubes.

Cut the stick of butter into cubes. Alternate adding chicken cubes and butter cubes to your food processor or blender. Use about 1/3 of each for starters and add a couple of tablespoons of chicken broth to the mixture to help it mix. Blend until everything is smooth. Remove the blended chicken spread from the processor and place it into the container you will use for storing the pate. Process the next 1/3 of chicken and butter with more broth. Repeat until all of the chicken and butter is blended and smooth. Stir all the parts together in your refrigerator container and season to taste.   Viola! Chicken pate!

The bonus from this project is the second piece of chicken that is happily diced and stirred into the chicken broth with the carrots and celery. You can freeze this in multiple containers to wait until you want soup. The one quart of broth can easily become two or four servings of soup, depending on the quantity you like to serve. When you thaw one container of broth, add a few more vegetables and either vermicelli or minute rice. Heat until bubbly and you are set for chicken soup!