Cooking with Chef Jo: Soup's On

Welcome to the cooking recipes and how-to day at the Cockeyed Homestead!

Today is another soup's on day. Like last week, this recipe is another canning recipe too. As I've said, I don't know how to make a small batch of soup. So we eat what we want one night and I can the rest. You can freeze this also after it's fully cooked.

I mention last week that Mel loved a mixture of my chicken and vegetable and cream of mushroom soup. Last week, I gave you the recipe of my chicken and vegetable soup so this week, I'm following it up with my cream of mushroom soup.

A word of warning, the powers that be DOES NOT RECOMMEND canning dairy. Do so at your own risk. I've been canning dairy products for years with no problem. But do what you will, you can always add it later when cooking. I'll add the substitutions in the recipe.

Once again, I'm making a large batch and canning it for later use. This soup can be eaten plain or added to various recipes. I always keep at least a case or two of pint jars of it on hand. My recipe is also concentrated so you will have to add milk if eating it plain.

Jo's Cream of Mushroom Soup
Makes 3 1/2 gallons of soup or approx 20 pints

20 lbs of mushrooms (assorted)
1 head of garlic, finely minced
1 onion, finely minced
5 ribs of celery, finely minced
2 tbs thyme, dried and crushed fine
1/2 gallon half and half (substitute water if not canning dairy)
8 qts stock (*vegetable, chicken, or beef stock)
1 cup cooking Clear-Jel or other canning approved thickener**
3 qts of water
2 sticks of butter (use the real stuff please or use vegetable oil if not canning dairy)
3 tsp salt, if you did not add it to your stock
Notes
* I usually use a combination of chicken bone broth and vegetable stock in mine.
** Do not use flour or corn starch substitute. It will break down in the canning and storing process.

Clean and slice your mushrooms into bite sized pieces. Remember, they will shrink when cooked. Finely mince your onions and garlic. Add to a hot stock pot with melted butter. Cook well until the onions and mushrooms are cooked and slightly browned. There will be yummy mushroom juices in the bottom of your pan. You want that too. It will take 10-15 minutes under medium heat. Keep stirring. You don't want this to burn.

Add your thyme and stir.

Reserve a qt of water. Add water and stock to the mushroom mixture. Bring to a boil.

Mix Clear-Jel with the reserved water. Mix until smooth.

Add Clear-Jel slurry to the soup. Stir well and bring to a boil.

Continue cooking until thickened over medium low heat until it's the consistency of a runny pudding. It coats the back of your spoon thickly.

Add the half and half. Simmer 30 minutes. Do not boil!

The liquid will be thinner, but will thicken up more in the canning and cooling process. Standard jarring technique for pressure canning. Clean hot jars. Your altitude for pressure setting. 65 minutes for pints, 90 minutes for quarts. Because I use chicken broth and half and half in my soup I can as if I was canning meats. I usually do this recipe in pint jars because the standard can of cream of mushroom soup is 15 1/2 ozs so it makes for easy substitutions in recipes.

To serve: add 1/2 a jar of milk to a pint of canned soup. Heat through and eat.
Enjoy!

Y'all have a blessed day!

Jo