Campbell's condensed soup
is one of the most common
foods you'll ever receive
at the local food pantries
after the VA system steals
you blind of your Disability
benefits. Let's face it --
you can only live on peanut
butter and jelly sandwiches
just so long before nothing
becomes a better choice than
something. The VA doesn't care,
so it's up to you to help yourselves.

There are some things that
you can do to regular canned
soup to convert it from a
watery tease to a near stew
like meal that can be a real
filler if you add crackers
or bread on the side.

If you are able to use your
food stamps wisely, you can
keep your refrigerator stocked
with fresh or frozen vegetables
to add or your cupboard can
also be stockpiled with those
OTHER food pantry items: egg
noodles, rice, or macaroni.

Consider this slight change:

Cut up 1 inch sized pieces
of fresh broccoli and put
it into Cream of Celery
soup, and let it simmer
on low heat for about 10
minutes until tender and
you now have Cream of Broccoli
soup. Be generous with the
fresh broccoli as this will
thicken up the soup to
a near stew like bowl.

Taking the cream soups
generally, you can either
make them with 1 full can
of milk or water, or half
and half of both.

For Cream of Chicken, for
instance, here are the
choices of combinations
that you can load in and
have it actually turn out
great and filling too:

Always stockpile and
use Frozen Mixed Vegetables
and/or Frozen Stir Fry
Vegetables (larger chunks)
These can be added right
to the soup with a little
salt and pepper until they
are tender and hot and
you can add as much as
your stomach dictates.
You can also add these
vegetables as "extra" to
regular Vegetable, beef,
or chicken soups to make
it more stockier.


Rice: all rice is pretty
much made the same way
unless it is Minute Rice.
One cup of water, boil it,
add 1/2 cup of rice, and
simmer it until the water
is completely gone. You
can store it in a covered
dish in your Frig and
use it as you go along.
Put it directly in soup
along with Frozen mixed
vegetables. Cream of Chicken
is especially good with this.

Egg Noodles: These are not
quite the same as macaroni
but again you can load
these right into the soup
and simmer until they are
tender with a fork. Add
a little salt and pepper.

Macaroni: Rotini, elbows,
bow ties, who cares. Whatever
ya got. It's better to add
these to plain boiling water
until they are tender first,
then drain it and add it
to your soup. This will also
keep for a couple of days
in your frig just like
Rice. The reason for the extra
step is because Pasta is
quite starchy and you would
want to drain off the starch
flavor before adding it to
your soup.

Rice works well with both
Cream of Celery and Cream
of Mushroom also.

For those of you who have
received your very first VA
check, and can afford to splurge
a little for the higher priced
soups, or maybe it was your
lucky day at the Food Pantry,
consider this:

Chunky Soup Beef or Pot Roast
can be heated and poured
directly onto rice, bread,
biscuits, or egg noodles which
are boiled in advance and
drained. Added to slices of
bread on a plate, it's very
close to a hot beef sandwich
or a beef stew open face
sandwich.

For Cream of Tomato soup,
the macaroni works best.

For Split Pea soup, add
one half of a small box
of frozen Lima Beans.
Even if you don't normally
like Lima Beans all by
themselves, when you add
it to the Split Pea soup
it's a perfect blend and
fills you up fast.

Perhaps these suggestions
will take away some of the
depression from your next
trip to the Food Pantry
while fat cats at the VA
plot their next delay on
your case and eat at
Washington's finest
restaurants.