Homemade Cream of Celery Soup

Today for lunch, I made cream of celery soup. I was a little leery of it because I wasn't sure how much of a meal it was going to be. I still don't think it had enough protein, since it just came from dairy products, but it was much better than I was expecting. It is definitely not the same as heating up a can of cream of celery soup and adding the milk or water. Even though I use the cans in recipes, eating them plain just seems too gross to me. Also, this recipe can easily be modified to make just about any cream of soup you want. It is of course more time consuming than opening up a can but because it tastes so much better and is arguably healthier, it might be worth it. However, by no means is this soup healthy. Yes, it has celery in it but that's about it. It also has lots of butter and other fats.

I made a few adjustments to the original recipe so I will write mine out for you.

Ingredients:

• 6 stalks of celery (non-organic but we don't buy organic anything), chopped small (and next time I will chop them even smaller)
• a couple shakes of garlic powder
• a couple shakes of onion powder (I got too lazy after chopping all the celery to find the energy to cut the onions too but I may change that for the future)
• I misread the directions and used 1/2 cup of butter instead of 1/4 and next time, I will cut it down (although this way was delicious too)
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1 1/2 cups of water with the chicken flavoring from a ramen mixed in (usually what we use for chicken broth)
• 1 cup 1% milk
• about 1/4 cup sour cream (to make it thicker since we didn't have cream or whole milk and we had this on hand)
• a pinch of salt (I was careful not to use too much because the ramen is so salty)
• a pinch of sugar

Then I followed the same directions as the original but I only simmered for 7 minutes instead of 15. I also turned the heat down to medium-low instead of medium because mine kept sticking. I think the full 15 minutes would've made it took thick.

The recipe said that it makes the equivalent of two cans of cream of soup but I have to disagree with this. We barely got 3 servings out of it (and that's food pyramid servings, not what people actually eat servings). It was very very good, even on its own and we will definitely make it again. We also think it might make a good sauce for something or be good if you add some potatoes. 

Meat and Potato Casserole

I know the title of this post sounds so bland but this casserole was quite delicious! We are kind of a potato kick lately because we have over 30 pounds of potatoes to use. I know they last forever but we've also had them forever. We also love casseroles because you can fill them with whatever you want, including other vegetables lurking in your vegetable crisper.

This recipe is pretty easy to make but does require a bit of multi-tasking. We also used real potatoes (obviously) instead of frozen ones so the author recommended dicing them and soaking them in water for ten minutes first. We weren't sure the casserole would have enough liquid in it to cook the potatoes but they turned out so good! They were chewy instead of mushy. You could top this casserole with mashed potatoes or something of the like but the chewy fry-ness of this gives it a different taste. We baked it for 40 minutes because the cheese sauce was starting to burn but the potatoes were still pale.

I will admit the sour cream and onions in the ground beef makes it taste a tad like stroganoff so at first it tastes a little off with the mixed vegetables (we used green beans, corn, carrots, and broccoli). But the flavors come together and taste even better as leftovers (like most things). Next time, we will also add more cheese on top of the potatoes, probably within the last 5 minutes of cooking. 1/2 cup for a 9x13 pan really isn't that much. I'm not sure, even without the extra cheese, I would call this casserole healthy (or in the author's words, "Good for you") but it could be worse. I also wonder how this would taste with a cream of soup instead of the cheese sauce. Of course, that makes it even unhealthier but possibly tastier!

So the first night we had this, I would've rated it a 3.5 out of 5. As leftovers, I rate this a 4.5 out of 5. We will be making this again!

Shepherd's Pie with Ham

Hey everyone. Once again, I apologize for not blogging in a while. Especially with the holidays, time just got away from me. As usual, I will try to blog more in the upcoming days but we will have to see how things go.

A while ago, David and I were looking for a new recipe that used ham and potatoes. David wanted a shepherd's pie sort of thing but I had never heard of one made with ham. I figured it was possible but you'd have to alter most of what was in it to make it taste right (in my opinion). I googled for one and found this recipe. It turned out great! David did most of the work because Baby was not cooperating and needed more attention. The only thing I would change from his recipe was the amount of black pepper he put in the potatoes. He didn't measure but it got kind of spicy. Well, I don't know if spicy is the right word but it was just too much pepper.

As we normally do, we made a couple changes to the recipe. First, we didn't put the cream cheese in the mashed potatoes. We didn't have any on hand and we don't really like the texture it gives them. Second, we used water instead of broth as a time saver (we don't buy broth. We sometimes have bouillon but then you have to boil water and stuff). Third, we used cream of chicken instead of cream of celery. In our small town, I don't think the grocery store even carries cream of celery. We have VERY limited cream ofs. I think everything else, including the directions, remained the same.

This recipe did take a while, especially because we didn't have leftover mashed potatoes so we made them from scratch. I think it was worth it but I would wonder if you could prep it ahead of time and put it in the fridge before baking. I will also mention that it tastes great leftover too!