Cook: Make Your Own Cream of "Something" Soup!

I don't know about you guys, but I feel like I never have cream of chicken soup when I need it. Or cream of whatever else I might be wanting to use. When I saw this post from Pinterest, I knew it was something I wanted to try. Even if it didn't work, it was worth a try to save money and grocery store trips! 

Oh and did I mention it's way healthier? I love making alternatives to store bought items because I actually know what's in the food I'm eating and feeding to my husband. Store bought cream of "something" soups are always high in sodium and full of other junk we don't need. 

Ingredients:

• 1 cup non-fat dried milk 
• 3/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/4 cup bouillon (beef, veggie, chicken, whichever you prefer. I used chicken)
• 4 Tablespoons freeze dried minced onions
• 1 teaspoon basil
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon parsley
• 1 teaspoon chives

When you're ready to use it, mix 1/3 cup of your dry mix with 1 1/4 cup of water. This is the equivalent of one can of condensed soup. Cook it until it thickens up. 

Directions:

If you have cubed bouillon you'll need to crush it. I love using my mortar and pestle! It's so fun. I used a total of 10 cubes and that was about 1/4 cup.

Crush it well.

Pour all your ingredients into a medium bowl. 

Stir it all up till everything is well mixed. 

Now fill up a jar and you're good to go! I'm going to make a label for it with the recipe for making the actual soup as well as the ingredients for one batch so I always have it handy. As you can see, one batch made over half of a mason jar full. I haven't cooked with it yet but as soon as I do I'll give you an update on how it was! 

Also, I added the parsley and chives just because but they weren't included in the original recipe. 

Can't wait to try it out! Too bad this post just gave me a mini To-Do list! 

1. Make a label for the jar

2. Actually try out the mix

I'll get right on it...

UPDATE 8/13/13: I painted the jar with chalkboard paint to create a label and I use this mix all the time! It's delicious! 

Have you ever made your own version of a cream of "something" soup? Do you prefer to stick with the cans at the store instead?

Till next time,

Catherine

I've linked up to the In and Out of the Kitchen Party #36 with Feeding Big!

Good Mail Day

Such a nice sight to see when I opened my little mailbox today!  Two new postcards from Postcrossing and a full size freebie of Hill's Science Diet Veggie Chips dog treats!

I love freebies and when I signed up for this I didn't expect a full sized bag! Science Diet treats aren't cheap! Needless to say, the pups love them! Sweet potatoes and carrots are two of their favorite veggies! I'm not sure where I first heard about the giveaway but it was probably either Hip2Save or FabuLESSlyFrugal. 

My Postcrossing postcards were from Germany and China. So cool! I need to send more soon. If you're not familiar with it, Postcrossing is kind of like simplified pen pals. Remember back when you were 11 and had a pen pal in Montana that you found in the Tiger Beat magazine? Don't lie...you did. 

My postcard from Germany. The sender lives along the Rhine River in a small town. The postcard is of old Berlin.

This odd postcard is from China. The sender wrote that I have three wishes from the lamp of God. The "lamp of God" kind of scares me a bit!! I'm not sure what's worse, it's lips or it's "tail" or it's gigantic belly button. Why on earth is it holding an umbrella with it's proper pinky out? So many questions. 

Anyways.

Postcrossing is just sending postcards but you register them online and you can see a visual map of where your cards have gone, and where ones you have received have come from. It's really cool! You should check it out! Plus, you can specify whether or not you'd like to continue communicating and become pen pals with your postcard sender/recipient. So far I have sent 5 postcards, received 3 and am continuing correspondance with my first postcard recipient from Germany! It's really cool, I'm enjoying it so far!

Did you ever have pen pals? Where was the furthest your letters traveled? I used to have pen pals in Italy and Spain! I also had ones in the United States as well. 

Till next time,

Catherine