Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/10/how-to-enhance-chunky-soup.html
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Borders too close on cooking for my tastes.
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“Older fellow?” That’s a strangely ageist comment to make, young fellow.
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Not around here. $3+ CAN, except when it’s on sale.
Frozen peas or corn are a good addition. I always sprinkle in some dried onion flakes. (I think they’re dried onion flakes. They look like toenail clippings, and you can’t tell by the smell…)
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OK, if you are not vegan, you don’t know what you are missing if you don’t add bacon to your can of New England Clam Chowder. And maybe some Chipotle powder.
If I am making NECC from “scratch” bacon is a MUST.
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I’ve been known to do this kind of thing to enhance my ramen. I almost always have some broccoli, baby sweet peppers and green onion on hand. While the water is boiling and noodles are cooking, I cut the broccoli and peppers into small pieces, stir fry them in a pan for a minute, add a little water and cover for another minute or so until cooked all the way through, and then off the heat I add a few more ingredients to make a sauce - soy sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil, sriracha. Add cooked noodles to bowl, add veggies, sauce and sliced green onions, add seasoning packet, add desired amount of water, stir and enjoy.
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I buy the cheap ramen, and throw out tge seasoning. So I just use the noodles, flavoring with tamari, adding some ginger and onions, green peas and cauliflower, and tofu for protein.
I don’t have it a lot, but I do like the noodles every so often.
I am confused. He IS basically cooking a soup already. Why not just add some powdered broth and be done … instead he drains it and adds a canned soup?!
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This is largely a pass for me, these soups are either unhealthy or just flat out bad. Generally both to be honest.
With little effort soup can be made from scratch with little attention or fussing. Toss things in a pot and walk away, its especially true if using a slow cooker and the results would be way better than anything canned.
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If you want to enhance something vegetarian, these Indian dishes are a great start. Very flavorful, but not hot. They come in a flat box with an MRE-type boil bag, a dozen or so different dishes. Great shelf life. ~$2 CAN at Metro. A different brand, same thing, at Superstore.
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Yes, I buy those, though other brands. Sometimes I buy a few different packs, for a multicourse meal, other times I buy a curried chickpeas and add rice, cauliflower and peas. It gets the flavor right, but you aren’t paying a lot. I also treat it as a “treat”, something occasional.
But tgen, the other day I had some chilli that wasn’t enough, so I cooked a box of Kraft Dinner and mixed it all together.
One thing, now that I’m supposed to limit sodium, a lot of precooked meals seem to have a lot of it.
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I always just add some left over rice and some sriracha to those cans of soup depending on the type.
Leftover stir fry veggies work too. It’s great to have a can around to take to work when I don’t have enough left overs for a whole meal after doing stir fry.
I have never been able to cut vegetables in my hand like that. I’m always afraid I’m going to cut my thumb right open.
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We also buy 6-packs of the cheap ramen just to have the noodles on hand. Homemade stir fry with noodles instead of rice, for example. I also use it in soups. If I was this guy or his friend Arthur, I’d be putting half a ramen brick in there. That would be about 8 cents.
Let’s be honest - he’s making Bachelor Chow.
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Even easier and healthier: Home made miso soup. A tub of miso paste has a literally infinite shelf life. The stuff you get in restaurants is universally thin, bland, meh.
You only need about 2-3 Tbsp for a 3-5 Qt pot (depending on sodium tolerance). Then you just throw in whatever small, cut-up vegetables, tofu and/or meat. You only need to cook it as long as it takes for your solid ingredients to be soft and safe to eat.
In winter, I do one with sweet potato, onion, carrot and thin sliced pork as a side dish, takes about 40 min to make and gets richer and tastier with each reheating.
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Pretty sure this is the same guy with some much better advice.
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You’re not really supposed to and any cook or chef worth their salt would tell you never to do that. Over the holidays i had to stop my mom from cutting something in that exact same fashion, she’s an excellent cook and she should’ve known better but sometimes in the moment people take bad shortcuts.
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I buy those along with instant microwave rice and you have a decent meal within minutes
Cooking aside, this is were he gives the real advice: http://www.ezfinancialtutorials.com/
Yes, but he’s demonstrating how to do it with a spirit of corny low-key cheerfulness which I find soothing.
I don’t care for what he’s actually making though, as canned soup and cabbage are bad. My version consists entirely of red lentils, stock cubes, an onion, lemon juice and MSG. It’s surprisingly good, and works well as hermit fuel since you don’t want to be around people after eating lentils anyway. If you’re having a fancy self-date night, you can make a gourmet version by adding carrots.
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