Everyday Systems

As long as we're talking about Michael Pollan...

I've been trying to incorporate his principles into my cooking and have found that condensed Cream of Something Soup is a real stumbling block. It's so handy when making a sauce or gravy for a casserole.

I found these recipes: http://www.gfutah.org/recipes/Condensed ... 0Soup.html

The bouillon does not fit the "eat food" rule, but the rest of the recipe is okay, so I was thinking maybe replacing it with poultry seasoning?

Or maybe canned organic (minimal ingredient) chicken broth?

Also, I think I will replace the cornstarch with flour, since we don't have gluten problems here.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I am wondering, when making Cream of Mushroom, could I just leave it out altogether, and just season with a little garlic & onion powders, salt & pepper. These are default seasonings in my kitchen.

Getting past the canned cream of something soups was a major hurdle when i started cooking more healthfully. It changed my cooking radically. Now I either ignore recipes that call for the canned soups or try to use a substitute from the start. I've noticed a benefit beyond the fact that I'm using "real food": the food tastes so much better!

In all fairness I'll have to say that there are a few things I cook that I still use the canned soups. I can't get them to taste right using a homemade sauce/gravy. I figure that as long as 80-90% of what I make and eat is "real food", the rest doesn't matter so much. I don't make these dishes weekly or even monthly, so I just don't worry about it.

I either make a seasoned white sauce with butter and flour as the thickener or a gravy starting with the fat/flour roux and adding stock or broth. Sometimes the stock is homemade, sometimes it comes from a box. If I'm cooking something that is thinner than I would like I sometimes add a buerre manie. I just mix equal amounts of softened butter and flour and add it to the simmering liquid.

Another thing I do is to dredge meat in flour before I brown it, then add whatever liquid to the pan and let it simmer. The flour on the meat along with the fat in the pan thicken whatever liquid is added.

Stephanie O'Dea has this "cream of" alternative in her cookbook:

1 TBS butter
3 TBS flour (she uses a gluten-free baking mix)
1/2 cup low fat milk
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

Make a roux on the stovetop with the butter and flour, and whisk in the milk, broth, salt and pepper.

Recipe = 1 10-ounce can "cream of something" soup

I have always had trouble with making white sauces and gravies using the roux method (where you mix the flour with the butter). I have had much better luck and smoother sauces by treating the flour kind of like corn starch and mixing or shaking it with a bit of cold water, broth, or milk before mixing it in with the rest of the liquid. When you do this butter is optional (but always nice). Just make sure the rest of the liquid isn't boiling or you may end up with miniature dumplings. haha. I also think you are suppose to let the sauce bubble for a minute or two to cook away the flour taste a bit.

It will never be as easy as just adding a can of soup, but it is more versatile and you can get creative with it. Last night I made tuna noodle casserole (from a recipe). It was a sauce with milk and chicken broth thickened with butter and flour and then you melt in 4 oz. of cream cheese to add a bit more creaminess and tang.

wosnes' suggestion of coating meat in flour (I use seasoned flour with salt and pepper mixed in with it) also works great for stews and pork chops and anything with chunks of meat. It's the closest to instant gravy as you can get. The more you brown the meat, the richer the gravy. I have not yet perfected this method though. But if the gravy is too thin, you can always thicken it later.

Sauce making is a really handy skill to have.

It took me a long time to get the roux based sauce/gravy making thing to work. I don't want to say "perfected" because every now and then it's lumpy as the dickens. But the secret is to stir, stir, stir. It goes through a stage of looking like you've really messed it up, but just keep stirring. And maybe add a little more liquid. Other factors play a part in it, too. Each bag of flour is a little different than the previous one; weather plays a part. It's not an exact science.

Some folks say to add the liquid slowly, and I have a hard time with that. I add it steadily and fairly rapidly -- and then stir like crazy. I think using a whisk helps, too. I have a flat whisk to use in skillets and I love it.

I've never made the roux in the saucepan, but have always just shaken the flour and milk together in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. If I have already sauteed the chicken/mushrooms/celery in butter, then I think I can just pour in the flour-milk mixture and cook it like that.

I appreciate your responses. I am going to put them to work! Thanks!

Here's what I sometimes use for "cream of whatever" soup. Found it on a website... it works pretty well. May not quite qualify as "real food" because there's dry milk in it, but I still think it's an improvement on canned stuff.

Mix for "Cream Soup"

2 cups nonfat dry milk
3/4 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon basil
1/4 cup instant bouillon

Combine all ingredients and mix well with wire whisk until blended. Store mix in an airtight container.

To prepare as a substitute for one can of condensed cream soup in recipes, stir together 1/3 cup dry mix and 1-1/4 cup water

Microwave 1 minute, stir, microwave 30 seconds, stir with whisk, microwave 30 seconds, stir... continue until thickened.

Makes a total of nine cans condensed soup substitute.

I don't cook any of those recipes anymore. I didn't use that many to begin with, and living in England cured me of it since you can't get that kind of soup there.

But some people I know use a white sauce, or just cream in place of the soup, depending on the recipe.

Instead of bouillon, I make chicken stock regularly and cook it down til it's quite concentrated, then freeze it in ice cube trays.

Could you perhaps use Organic cream of something? If every ingredient in a complex substance is "real food", then the substance itself should be, right?

RedBaron wrote:Could you perhaps use Organic cream of something? If every ingredient in a complex substance is "real food", then the substance itself should be, right?

Organic doesn't necessarily mean real food.

This goes along with this thread. He has a link to healthier substitutes for "cream of something" soup.

My biggest downfalls in terms of "real food" are diet soda, Splenda and -- sometimes -- chips. I've really cut back on chips with meals (at one point I had a handfull with lunch most weekdays andI'm not doing that anymore.) The Splenda in my daily cup of coffee and my afternoon small glass of Coke Zero are harder to give up at this point, though.