Since Yaya was perfectly happy eating Santa dandruff, she was dubbed the toughest and we all piled inside so the warmth of the carpet could send shots of pain up through our feet and ankles. Ahhhh. Amusing.
So, I was thinking about canned soup last night and how a can of the decent chunky soup was really expensive. Then I got to looking at the nutrition facts and lo and behold, 700 + grams of sodium, 24 + grams of carbs, fats, preservatives, ugh, why?
So I made a really large pot of chicken and wild rice soup last night. Big chunks of carrot, chicken that I had boiled and pulled off of a whole chicken this summer, real wild rice, slivered almonds, mushrooms, celery, onion, chicken broth and about 1/4 cup of heavy cream. All the good stuff that is in the purchased product and more, plus less sodium, carbs and no preservatives. The chicken was free range and given to me by the local Amish "widow."
Tangent:
I love that they call her "the widow," it's so romantic--really her husband is alive and well, just comes and goes from the community, only stopping in to see his kids. I think it's a separated thing; however, there is no such thing as divorce or separation in the community, so she is widowed.
Anyway, the carrots and veggies were cheap and the only think I may have really spent money on was the wild rice. All in all, I got 10 pints of soup for about $5.00. I also had made some chili, since I needed to use up some peppers quick. I thought it would serve as a supper for the in-laws that were supposed to be showing up. When they were unable to come, we ate our fill and I got 4 pints of chili too.
Thinking about how much those cans of soup are in the store, I figure I saved myself qyite a chunk of change. I have the convenience of easy soup without all the salt, fat and garbage and the added bonus of a whole pint instead of an 8 ounce can. You can feed 2 people out of each jar. Nice! And perfect for those "recipes" that call for 2 cans of beef and potato soup or whatever. My only complaint at all is the fact that I have the hardest water on the planet. The whole town does. Whenever I do a hot water bath, my jars look foggy because of the calcium. This is why I will never make my debut to Better Homes and Gardens. On the other hand, because of the calcium in my water, my bones are awesome!!!
Behold...the soup...
That little naked banana eater in the background is my youngest, Emma. Yes, I own clothes for her. No, she will not keep them on. Happily, until she's 5, I have more important things to worry about than covering her dots and cracks. 5 years old is my scheduled time that I uphold the need for clothes. Kind of like 8 months I took away the bottle, 2 years I took the nook, 3 years we potty train, 5 years we wear clothes. She's fine. I got this. Look at the soup and stop judging me. I'm awesome.
are those soups really acidic enough to be OK in a hotwater bath? To me they seem like they'd need a pressure canner kind of treatment..... (but YUM!)
ReplyDeleteNah. They were all precooked and hot when I put them in the sterilized jars. As long as the jars sealed, they are fine. I rarely use the pressure canner to be honest. Most of my canning is done in a hot water bath. I use the pressure canner when I can raw things, like meat, or if I'm cooking chicken bones for stock. Things that need to be sterilized I guess you would say. But, anything I precook, I hot water bath and have never had issues. You can do raws in hot water baths too, but it takes HOURS to cook and its so hard to know if its right. If I do raw in the pressure canner, its done in an hour, fully cooked and sealed correctly. I don't have to worry. :) I don't understand acidic enough? I guess I've never thought about it.
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