Souped Up Tomato Soup

A well stocked pantry is always an inspiration for my cooking. I have a large walk-in pantry that I'm in and out of several times most days. Quite often I get a glimpse of something in the pantry that forms the basis for a meal. This is one reason why menu planning with the exception of special events simply does not work for me. At heart I love the creativity of pantry cooking!

Souped Up Tomato Soup

I have posted many times about the various foods I can but sometimes how I use them is not always apparent. Since home canned foods play such a huge role in my pantry it only stands to reason that many meals are inspired from home canned foods. A couple of days ago I wanted a quick to prepare meal. Home canned tomato soup caught my eye for dinner but as Canadian Chef Michael Smith would say not any tomato soup, a special tomato soup. Michael Smith shows how to cook without a recipe on on Food Network Canada's Chef at Home. He gets his inspiration from one ingredient then builds from there. This is such a wonderful way to cook!

I started with home canned tomato soup made from scratch using garden fresh ingredients. The taste of this condensed soup beats store bought condensed tomato soup hands down! I decided to build on this soup base to create a souped up tomato soup. I added in home canned mushrooms, corn niblets, broccoli and red onion along with a bit of milk and Rooster Brand Instant Noodles to create a tasty, meatless soup that took less that 15 minutes to prepare. If you recall these are a healthier version of instant noodles than Ramen noodles Rooster Instant Noodles contain 0% fat making this a healthy soup as well.

Method: I heated 2 - 500 ml jars tomato soup then stirred in home canned mushrooms, frozen corn niblets, broccoli pieces and chopped red onion. Once the broccoli was lightly cooked I stirred in 500 ml of whole milk and brought to just a simmer then stirred in ¼ package of Rooster Instant Noodles. Cook 1 minute then ladle into bowls for serving.