Tomato Chicken Rice Soup

This past Friday, we went back to a place called Baxter's in Paoli, PA.  It's where we had our rehearsal dinner for our wedding in October of 2008.  My father in law has been talking about his meal for the past 2 years!!!  We made the trip out on Friday evening for him to get his steak tip dinner before they left for Iowa on Saturday morning.  This time around, I ordered this chicken dish and got a cup of soup to start.  The soup was a tomato base with chunks of chicken and rice.  It was SO good I didn't even bother eating the rest of my meal (1 cup of soup is still more than enough).

So last night I decided I was going to use what we had in the cupboards and try to recreate it.  Surprisingly, it came pretty close!  I think the only thing I may do differently next time is sub the 10 oz. of water for 16 oz. of low sodium chicken broth.  It was a little more like a stew than a soup and I think the chicken broth would have added some depth to the flavor.  Ryan on the other hand said  "please don't change it too much, it's really good the way it is". 

Ingredients (from my version last night):
1/2 cup of chopped yellow onion
1 tsp. of minced garlic (equivalent to 2 garlic cloves)
2 tbsp. of olive oil
2-3 stalks of celery - chopped
2 tsp. of garlic salt
1 package of Purdue short cuts roasted chicken (chopped into tiny pieces) Here's what you're looking for
1 package of uncle ben's 90 second brown rice (don't cook in the microwave)
10 oz. of water
10 3/4 oz. condensed tomato soup
14.5 diced or whole stewed tomatoes - no salt added
5.5 oz. tomato juice
6 oz. tomato paste
1 pinch of dried bay leaves (found in the spices section)
6-8 small leaves of fresh basil - chopped finely

Directions:
Saute onion, garlic and celery in olive oil on medium high heat for 3 minutes.  Add chopped up chicken to mixture and cook for an additional 2 minutes.  Stir in condensed tomato soup, water, tomato paste, tomato juice and stewed tomatoes.  Once that has mixed thoroughly, stir in brown rice (straight from the bag), bay leaves and basil leaves.  Stir until mixed well.  finally, add 2 tsp. of garlic salt and simmer for 20 minutes stirring occasionally.