Cooking with Chef Jo: Cream of Anything Dry Soup Mix

 Have you ever notice how many recipes call for Cream of something soup? I usually keep my condensed cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soup canned (2 cases worth at all times in my food stores). I get nervous when I get below a case of my cream of anything soup gets low. The same thing goes for soup bases like poultry, beef, and vegetable.

Now being a scratch cook that makes her own bases, usually bone broths for the added minerals and vitamins, I spend hours making just these and canning them up because I love my body. My body, such as it is, is my temple for God. I take care of it the best I can. No MSG, low fat, low sodium, GMOs, and organic when I can get it. Read available and afford it. Not everything is this way, but I do try. By the same token, I'm not opposed to shortcuts like purchasing powdered bases and bouillons also in a pinch. This is the case with most of my dry mixes. Yes, I have access to a freeze dryer to make my own, but when averaging out the cost and time to make my own versus purchasing it, buying it in bulk wins.

This isn't my recipe, but it's pretty much standardized from many recipes. I make this up a quart jar at a time, then I'm less panicky when my food stores run low. If you have dehydrated vegetables and poultry on hand, then you can make Cream of anything soup by just adding water and a few extra ingredients to this base.

Dry Mix for Cream of Anything Soup

Makes Approximately 9 cups

What you'll need

2 c dry, whole milk (I use Hooiser Farms brand through Amazon)*

3/4 c cornstarch

2TBS onion powder

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/4 c chicken, beef, or vegetable bouillon*

1/4 tsp dried thyme

1/4 tsp parsley

2 tsp garlic powder (optional)

* Note- If you are watching your fat, you can substitute skim dry milk.

Can't decide what flavor to use, leave this out and add 1/2 tsp of base when you make a cup of soup. These recipes are pretty forgiving. 

Place in a quart jar and shake well. Store in cool, dark place.

Now how about some recipes on how to make a cup of soup? You know I wouldn't leave you hanging.

Cream of Chicken  Soup

What you'll need

1/3 c cream of Anything base

1 cup boiled water

1/2 tsp chicken bouillon if you didn't add it earlier

1 heaping TBS dried diced chicken or canned chicken

Putting it all together

• Add all ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat.
• Stir well.
• Bring to a boil.
• Turn off the heat.
• Put lid on the pot and let steep for 5 minutes.
• Like a thicker soup? Return to low heat and stir until the soup reaches the desired consistency.

Cream of Celery Soup

What you'll need

1/3 cup of Anything Soup Base

1 cup water

1 heaping TBS dehydrated celery

1/2 tsp vegetable base, if not added to the mix

1/2 tsp celery seed, ground

Putting it together

Same directions as above.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

What you'll need

1/3 cup Anything Soup Base

1 cup water

1 heaping TBS dehydrated mushrooms, broken into small pieces

1/2 tsp either beef or vegetable base

Putting it together

Same instructions as above

Cream of Tomato Soup

I don't know about you, but I normally add milk to my tomato soup for the richer mouth feel.

What you'll need

1/3 cup of Anything Soup Base

1 cup of water

2 TBS tomato powder*

1 heaping TBS dried diced tomatoes

1/2 tsp vegetable or beef base if not added to the mix

1/4 tsp basil

*To make tomato powder, place dried tomatoes in a coffee grinder and pulse it until the pieces become powder.

Putting it together

See Cream of Chicken instruction.

The possibilities are endless. Cheese sauces, or casseroles, or have a different cream soup everyday for a month. Fix a sandwich and a small tossed salad for a complete, notorious lunch or dinner in a snap with this Cream of Anything Soup base in your pantry. There's no need to have to rush out to the grocery store for a can of Cream of Anything Soup because you forgot to pick some up.. Enjoy!

Y'all have a blessed day!

Chef Jo

Cooking with Chef Jo: Chicken with Mock Alfredo Sauce Over Egg Noodles

This is one of my pantry staple recipe. My go-to recipe when I've forgotten to take something out of freezer. When we had the big, chest freezer full of meats, I'd pull a week's worth of meat each Sunday.

Now, I'm not doing the shopping, I'm left to create with whatever meat is in the marked down bin. Mel buys enough for a week's worth of meals which ends up costing more to the tune of $500 a month.

Compared to me. I used to shop for the month, keep an eye out for bargains, and my bottom line. My budget was $300 a month buying in bulk if possible. If I spent under that amount, I stockpiled things like paper goods, extra meat, or hoard the cash away it away for my trips to Amish country for grain goods like flour, wheat, oatmeal, corn meal, clearjel, and sugar. I will spend approximately $400 per trip, and two tanks of gas, but I'd buy enough for a year or more. I always bought non GMO, and heritage, and/or organic where possible.

Now that I've explained all of that, variety is the spice of life. Good tasty meals are a must for me. So to get that option, I'm pulling from my precanned stores to get it. With that in mind, I decided to share my Chicken with Mock Alfredo Sauce over Noodles with y;all.

All this is from my stores building, but I'll add regular equivalents for y'all non-canning nor non food storage folks.

Chicken Mock* Alfredo Sauce over Egg Noodles
Serves 4
What you'll need

1 pint of of canned, grilled chicken*, or 1 lb of cooked chicken, shredded or diced
1 pint cream of mushroom soup, undiluted,* or 1 can of cream of mushroom soup, if using store bought cream of mushroom soup add 1 small tin of drained stems and pieces mushrooms, or use 4 TBS rehydrated dried mushrooms, chopped.
1 small onions, small dice
2 stalks of celery, small diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
                                           1/4 cup milk
                                            2 TBS butter
                                            1 lb wide egg noodles*
                                            2 tsp fresh or 1 tsp dried oregano
                                            Salt and pepper to taste

Notes*- Regular Alfredo sauce calls for heavy cream, parsley and twice as much Parmesan cheese. This is a lighter version, but just as tasty.
I parcook my chicken over charcoal, dice it into 2" pieces. I then fill the hot jars with 1 cup of chicken bone broth and 1/2 tsp salt before adding my chicken pieces, and pressure can them.
When I make my cream of mushroom soup, I dice my mushrooms, cook them in butter before I add them to my soup base so there are chunks of mushrooms and half and half in my version of cream of mushroom soup.
My mushroom soup is thick like store bought canned soup.
I make my own whole wheat noodles, dry, and store them for three to six months worth at a time.

Putting it all together

• Place onions, celery and garlic with 1 TBS of butter in a 2 qt sauce pan. Cook until onions are translucent (fully cooked).
• Add drained canned chicken, reserve the liquid.
• Add cream of mushroom soup. 
• Add the oregano.
• Turn your burner down to low.Stirring occasionally.
• Cook your egg noodles to al dente. They will be slightly firm to bite into. Simply subtract recommended cooking time by two minutes.
• Add the Parmesan cheese into the chicken mixture. Stir well and turn off the heat. 
• If too thick like custard, stir in some of the reserved chicken liquid. You want it to coat the back of the spoon. The mixture will continue to thicken as the cheese melts and cools.
• Drain the pasta. place the remaining TBS of butter to the hot pot. Add the drained pasta into the butter. Toss the pasta to coat it in butter.
• When the cheese is melted (slightly stringy), the chicken sauce is done.

Service- there are two schools of thought when it comes to serving pasta dishes. The first one is dish the pasta into servings and top with the sauce. The other one calls for mixing the pasta and sauce together, then serving. To each their own preference. I like it both ways. With the first choice, each element holds their own flavors and combine on your taste buds. The second is a more harmonious blending of all flavors.

Top each plate with more Parmesan cheese and oregano, and serve. I love to serve this dish with English peas or green beans, and a garden salad with a homemade Italian vinaigrette.

As for the leftover chicken bone broth, I'll save it for part of the liquid to cook rice, or give it as a treat to the cats, or pour it over th evening meal for the dogs as an extra protein boost for the animals.

Enjoy!

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo

Why We Keep a Prepper's Pantry

I wasn't a hoarder as a prepper before my stroke. I never bought more than a year's worth of anything, except for paper goods but that came in handy post stroke. I could make my own laundry, bath, and dishwasher soap if I needed to in a pinch. In fact, I still do many of the things I wrote about in my book living post stroke. I actually challenged myself after my stroke to find ways that I could still function with adaptation.

So today, I'm living on a homestead eeking my way towards being self sufficient. Mentally and physically, I'm a lot better off for it. That brings me today's topic, why I still keep a prepper's pantry.

I watched a YouTube video of a large family mom creating a month's worth of freezer meals. She ended up creating 42 freezer meals in about sixteen hours. It was fascinating to watch. Watch for yourself here. All the time I was watching her I kept a watch on how much trash she generated, and how much time and money she wasted. With a garden and precanning ingredients, she could have saved hours of cooking. Granted, she just went shopping and picked what needed while I spent almost six months growing, processing, and prepping my ingredients, but to each their own.

I also make most pastas except for formed shells and macaroni. Grind my own flour. Make my own sausage and butcher carcasses of meat down to the minutest form. But again that me being self reliant, and knowing where my meat comes from. For this endeavor, I went "shopping" in my food store pantry. I used my handy dandy shopping cart to help me carry in all that I needed.

To prove my point and down sizing the recipes for two servings versus twelve,  I replicated her menus sort of. I added quite a few whole meat meals and seafood dishes. In Operation Empty the Freezer last summer, found me canning meats, spaghetti sauces with ground beef and turkey. I'll make and keep  about 2 cases (24 pints)of chicken, beef, turkey, lamb, vegetable, and pork broth on hand. They are the by products of eating real, whole foods and butchering your own homesteading efforts.

So what did I put in my freezer for a month's worth of meals?

Panned meals (32)
3 beef spaghetti bakes
3 beef lasagnas
2 beef and lamb meatballs with duchess potatoes
3 green chicken enchiladas
3 seafood stuffed pasta shells in a beurre blanc sauce
3 pork chops  with stuffing
3 seared lamb chops over Mediterranean couscous
3 beef burritos
3 cheese and spinach ravioli with meat sauce
3 grilled chicken thighs over yellow rice
1 shepherd's pie
2 chicken pot pies
Bagged meals (10)
2 shrimp and smoked turkey sausage jambalaya
2 shrimp lomein
2 grilled chicken and vegetable stir fry with rice
2 marinated London broil with roasted vegetables
1 chicken marsala with rice
1 herb marinade lamb shoulder with peas and duchess potatoes

For a total of 42 meals! Want any of the recipes. Just let me know.

The difference in what was produced... I made my own ricotta and mozzarella cheeses, sour cream, and yogurt from locally sourced pasture fed cow's for milk. All the beef, lamb, and pork which we didn't raise were antibiotic and chemical free. 80% of the seasonings and blends used were done by me. Total time to put it all together was 5 hours after raiding my prepper's pantry. Of course, that doesn't include time and labor to procure and process it all.

 I also included desserts (4 total-cheesecake, peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies,  peach and apple turnovers) and breakfast menus (waffles with sausage, pancakes with bacon, crumpets, and french toast) to my freezer which added another 2 hours. Plus, there's always the fall back of granola, or grits and eggs for breakfast too.

With possibility of surgeries, injuries, blah days, and who knows what days ahead, it's nice to know that these meals are available when Mel or I need them.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Jo

Cooking with Chef Jo: Cockeyed Christmas Ornaments From the Pantry

For several decades I've made salt dough ornaments for my Christmas trees and wreathes. I happened upon a recipe for cinnamon ornaments this year and thought I'd combine the recipes. These are nonedible, but the combination of these two recipes will make them durable and smell good enough to eat.

For this recipe, I'll shop in my pantry and craft supply shelves to get everything I need. No special trips to the store.

The "Shopping" Trip

1. From my pantry I'll need: flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, applesauce, and cloves. I'll grab my parchment paper and baking sheet pans, and holiday cookies cutter from the inside pantry.
2. From my craft supplies I'll need: puff paints, a bottle of glue, a spool of 1/4" ribbon or elastic cording, two rubber bands, and a straw.
3. From the workshop, a bit of sand paper.

I tend to stick with one shape a year. This year it's gingerbread men. If I still had children and grandchildren around, it would be multiple shapes to allow for more creative expression. Since I keep one and distribute the rest among other family members two dozen will be plenty. So that how much the dough I'm making.

The Recipe
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup salt
1 cup ground cinnamon
1/2 tbs ground cloves nutmeg
1/2 tbs ground cloves
1/2 cup applesauce
1/8 cup all purpose glue (Elmers)
1//2 to 3/4 cup water

The How-to

• Add all ingredients in a bowl and combine until a thick dough forms. Similar to cookie dough consistency, but drier. Add or subtract water to achieve this.
• Place a rubber band around the ends of your rolling pin. You want your dough to be rolled out to 1/8" to 1/4".
• The rubber band thickness should give you this thickness when doubled or tripled on the ends of your rolling pin.
• Roll out your dough to 1/8" to 1/4" thick. A dusting of cinnamon on your rolling space will help your dough from sticking to the surface. Or you can roll between two sheets of parchment paper. Remember, the thicker you roll the dough, the longer it takes to dry.
• Cut out the shapes and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet about 1" apart. Unlike regular cookies, these will not rise and spread. They will shrink.
• Now take the straw and punch a hole in the top of each ornament. Don't worry if the hole looks too big. This is where you will thread the ribbon through during the decorating stage.
• Bake 200 degrees for two hours, or leave them on the sheet and let them air dry for 4-5 days. I have an older gas stove so I leave the ornaments overnight to dry by the pilot light heat within my oven. After the time has elapsed, you will notice the ornaments gave shrunk a bit because the liquid has dried.

The Finishing Touches
Once the ornaments have dried and thoroughly cooled, you can decorate them as much or as little as you want. I always put my initials and the year it was made on the back of each ornament with a sharpie pen. Every artist signs their
work, don't they?

If you end up with sharp rough edges, just take a bit of sand paper to smooth it out.

Oh that ribbon you pulled from your craft supplies, cut it into 8" pieces. One for each ornament. Thread the ribbon through each hole and knot to form the hanging loop.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Jo