I love the convenience of dehydrated foods but sometimes the results have a lot to be desired. Since moving to a new home last week I have not been to the store for our regular produce items. My challenge has been relying on my dehydrated foods to keep us going.
Usually when I make a dinner from dehydrated foods we don't always agree on the results. But I don't give up easily when it comes to food storage recipes, and I have been going through Leslie Probert's "Food Storage In A Nutshell" to try and find dinners that we all enjoy.
It was snowy outside today and I was craving warm, comforting soup. The recipe for Potato Soup had simple ingredients and sounded really yummy, so I gave it a try.
When cooking with dehydrated foods I think that the outcome of your meal depends on the quality of the product you start with. I really like Honeyville Grains dehydrated and freeze-dried foods for their top quality in taste and appearance.
The dehydrated celery cooked up soft and added the right amount of flavor to this soup. I have dehydrated my own celery and I couldn't ever seem to get it to reconstitute, it always had a bite to it.
I was equally impressed with the cubed potatoes. They cooked up soft and looked just like a cubed potato. I don't know why I am always so shocked when dehydrated food cooks up like it's fresh counterpart.
The other ingredients were shelf-stable and all in my pantry. I used Shirley J's Whisk Bliss instead of the white sauce mix in the recipe.
This soup is as easy as boiling all of the dehydrated food together and adding in the warmed whisk bliss.
Potato Soup
(adapted from Food Storage In A Nutshell)
7 C water
3 C dehydrated potato cubes
6 T dehydrated onions
2 T dehydrated celery
2 t Shirley J chicken bullion (or 3 t regular bullion)
2 bay leaves
Combine all ingredients above in a large pot. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and boil 10-15 minutes.
Meanwhile bring to a boil 6 C water and whisk in 1 1/2 C Shirley J Whisk Bliss*. Stir for 5 minutes.
Turn off heat to vegetable mixture, remove the bay leaves, mash potatoes slightly and add in the Shirley J Whisk Bliss.
Add:
1 T dried parsley
salt and pepper to taste
Stir and heat until warm if necessary.
Makes 8-9 servings
*For a white sauce mix recipe click HERE.
This soup had flavor and was thick enough to feel like a complete meal. I made rolls out of the Honeyville Scone mix to round out our dinner. Everyone in my family ate it up and even had seconds. I was so excited that this didn't taste like food from a can.
