Soup and Sandwich Saturday

It's a rainy day in Princeton.  A good day to make soup and bread.  Although I do make bread every other day and soup a couple times a week.  So I guess any day is a good soup and sandwich day.  My dad lives with us and he is 88 years old.  He loves homemade soup so that is what he gets everyday for lunch.  I always make it too thick for him and he wants it watered down a bit.  I wonder if that is from the old days when you could feed more people by just watering down the soup or stew.  I will discuss my favorite appliances for accomplishing this at a later time, but today I'll tell you how I make Creamy Vegetable soup and English Muffin toasting bread.  I wasn't in the mood for a lot of chopping and cutting today, so this is super easy and quick.  It's just a dump and heat sort of soup, but it's delicious.  It feeds a ton of people or 3 people many days. I added some cooked chicken today, but it isn't necessary.

Creamy Vegetable Soup

 In a big kettle, probably 8 qt. or so, bring to a boil 7 cups of water.

Add:

1 bag ( 12 oz) of frozen mixed vegetables

1 bag (16 oz) of frozen broccoli florets or fresh broccoli if you have it.

Bring back to a boil and then add

1 bag (32 oz) of frozen hash browns.  I like the southern style which are little squares

6 chicken bouillon cubes

1 cup chopped onion

Simmer for a few minutes and then add

2 cups milk

2 cans of Cream of Chicken soup

12 oz. pkg. of American cheese slices (stir in until melted)  

I like the real American cheese that you can separate but isn't packaged separately.  It's a pain to unwrap 16 slices of cheese or you could chunk up some Velveeta but it takes longer to melt.

English Muffin Toasting Bread

You could just mix this up in a bowl, but I picked up a bread machine at Goodwill for $4.99.  There are a ton of them in thrift stores because people thought they were a good idea and then didn't use them.  I put the ingredients in the bread machine, set it for the dough cycle, when it beeps I dump it out into a regular bread pan,  cover and let it rise and bake it at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.  I figure a loaf costs between $.25 and $.50.

1 1/4 c. of water

2 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. baking soda (English muffin bread always has baking soda)

3 cups of flour

3 Table. dry milk ( you can eliminate this and use milk instead of water for the first ingredient)

2 teaspoon of yeast ( I buy this in bulk at a local Mennonite store)