Homemade Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup

 

Necessity is surely the mother of invention.  Most of my culinary creativity comes from getting a deal too good to pass up and buying TOO MUCH OF IT (ask my kids some time about the time I bought 50 boxes of a Waffle Crunch cold cereal while we were living in Brazil--it was the first American cereal we found after living there over a year and it was on sale).  Well it happened again.  I stopped at a great bargain store we have in our area that sells overstocked food items for cheap.  Their special this time was 1 lb. boxes of sliced  mushrooms for 50 cents.  I bought 6 of them.  We had some with omelettes, with our chicken dinner last night, and with our fish and rice tonight, but that still left me with over 4 lbs. of mushrooms that were not going to last.  Then I remembered that we were almost out of Cream of Mushroom soup in our food storage.  I scrounged the net for ideas but the recipes I found required that I go out and buy specialized ingredients.  I adapted them to use ingredients I already had in my food storage and the result was delicious--better IMHO than the Campbell's variety which usually tastes like it came out of a can.

You've got to love Condensed Cream of Mushroom soup--it's the ultimate comfort food, and it is used in so many recipes.  Unfortunately it's one of the most expensive soups on the shelf ounce-per-ounce (supply and demand).  However, it turns out that it's easy and inexpensive to make.  Here's how:

Yields: 31 ounces (equivalent of 3 cans)Ingredients

• 3 Tablespoons of onion powder

• 1.5 Tablespoons of salt
• 1.5 Tablespoons of garlic powder
• 4 Tablespoons of cornstarch

• 3 Tablespoons of oil

• ¼ teaspoon of whole pepper corns

• 1.5 Cups of powdered milk
• 2 Cups of water

• 2 Cups of sliced mushrooms (about 5 ounces)

Instructions

1. Put all ingredients except the mushrooms in a blender and puree. Add one cup of mushrooms and pulse 2-3 times until mushrooms are roughly blended.  Chop up the other cup of mushrooms to the size you prefer in your soup and stir in.

1. Pour into a pan and bring to a boil over medium heat stirring regularly.  Alternatively microwave it in a glass bowl on HIGH for 3 minutes.  Mix it well halfway through and then again at the end.  If hasn't thickened up (boiled) microwave it for another 30 seconds and stir it again.

It freezes nicely so make as much as you like (I made the equivalent of 16 cans today so our freezer is full!

Have fun and enjoy.