Souped-up Soup

Ahhh, it's good to be home with a real-life computer and keyboard.  Traveling was great, and we ate at some really fantastic restaurants.  During the trip I didn't do as much cooking as I had envisioned.  But that's OK.  Sometimes it's nice to take a break.

On my first night back home, I eased myself back into cooking.  This is a very easy way to take a pre-fab dinner and add your own special touch to it.  When I was in college, my roommate left school to take up a different curriculum:  culinary school.  He graduated and is now a trained chef.  I still lean on him for his expertise when I want to solicit some free advice.  But even back then he had a passion for food.  He used to "soup-up" pre-made food all the time.  It actually had nothing to do with soup at all.  It was just what he called taking an out-of-the-package food and enhancing it with other ingredients and seasonings.

That's what I did here with this soup.  I started by sauteing chopped celery with dried onions and minced garlic in a little olive oil.  Then I added chopped mushrooms and salt & pepper.  I let all those ingredients get to know each other in a sauce pan for a while.  

Then I deglazed the pan with 8 cups of hot water.  That will allow you to scrape off all those delicious bits of flavor that are stuck to the bottom of the pan. For the love of God, don't let those go to waste! Bring that to a rapid boil. 

Then I added a dried soup & wild rice mixture to the pot.  Reduce the heat to medium and simmer for another 10-12 minutes.  This is a very easy way to take make soup without starting the whole thing from scratch.  But with the addition of fresh vegetables and your own seasonings, you have "souped-up" something that would otherwise come straight out of the package.  We also baked a loaf of French bread to serve with the souped-up soup.

This dinner was little more than heating up a frozen pizza, but at least it was prepared fresh, and had the feel of a home-cooked meal.  I try to remind people of this all the time, not every meal has to be hours of labor building something from scratch.  At least you enjoyed a meal together at home ... and it wasn't drive through.