Pioneer Woman at Heart

  The new year brings new beginnings.  It's a year of ending a few things as well.   Many of the gatherings this year were small.  Either sickness hit most, some didn't want to be around people, and some did not get together over the holidays.  Either way, I did not cook/bake for the gatherings, and that was actually nice for once. January brings winter weather.  The weather is doing what it does - wintering.  Wintering in a weird way too.  If I was traveling, it would be a very good month for travel.  The temperatures are warming between 50-60 degrees, and rain. (shallots and butter) (homemade condensed mushroom soup, prepared as equal to one can of soup, to freeze) We are seeing more stores closing as the new year rolls in, and we have also found out that our nearest grocery store will no longer sell shallots.  I use shallots and butter as my starting base when making homemade condensed mushroom soup (which I freeze, one containe...

Per a request for the recipe. . . I've been making this homemade version of "canned" cream of mushroom soup since February of 2014.  The link in my post below. Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup Another post with a few photos ....contains the link to the actual recipe online.  She has added fresh thyme to the recipe since I started making it, and have not added it to mine (yet). She also has the recipes for condensed cream of celery soup and condensed cream of chicken soup.  I have made all three of the recipes and they are keeper recipes for me. I adapt the recipes with organic/non-gmo ingredients for the healthiest soup recipes. I can say that the original recipe she had up, stated two cremini mushrooms.  Same with shallots, but she has listed amounts now.  Our stores stopped selling bulk cremini mushrooms all together, so I now buy organic baby bella mushrooms for ours.  I love it.  The shallots bring the party to the soup mix for sure.  So good....

Shallots, Organic Baby Bella Mushrooms   I have been making homemade condensed mushroom soup, for the freezer.  The link still works on my older blog post, but I do not add the thyme to mine.  I never know what I am going to use it for, so I leave that out, but the link for the recipe is on this:  Blogpost. The original recipe calls for cremini mushrooms.  I used to find them in the stores, prior to covid, but all I can locate here, are organic white or baby bella (so I buy the baby bella).  I did some research and baby bellas are basically the same as cremini mushrooms. Mushrooms are very healthy for us, and I love this recipe, as it uses butter.  Organic store bought condensed soup contains soy oil and other soy products.  The recipe does contain a bit of flour, but I adapt the entire recipe using all organic/non-gmo ingredients.  There is no corn starch in this recipe. It smells so good when it's being made.  The link goes to a recipe...

These are hard to find this time of year, but I was thankful to get 3 bunches during my last shopping trip.  I blanched and got them in the freezer for the next few weeks.  My stash was very low (dandelion greens). I made a few "cans" of condensed mushroom soup.  One package of mushrooms goes a long way and they boost your immune system.  I tossed in some fresh thyme for medicinal purposes. I found out my car was never trailered to our handyman's house, and he has not been working on it.  Double grr.  Guess when this is all over, we will go get it somehow and just work on it ourselves when we can.....not that we can go anywhere right now. Our state has now closed spas, salon's, barbers, tattoo parlors, and all Jeep and other vehicle manufacturers, but my husband still has to work with 300 plus people.  They are told to get those touch-less temperature reading gadgets and use them constantly.  I am told by Hubby that they do no lack hand ...

Wednesday it heated up to 90°F, and of course it brought rain. Now they are saying lots of rain coming our way, so weeding went to a halt.  Just when I was getting things caught up.  The rain however, will be the fate of my garlic getting planted.  Sounds just like our spring we had - so much rain you can't plant.  The struggles have been real this year.  We must get the fruit tree baffles in or at least made for spring.  That's on the "do it when the snow flies" list.  I have a lot of lists right now. Thursday it started out raining and muggy, but the temps went down to the 60's.  Layers went back on.   I got caught up on my library book stash however.  I even got some reading time with my current book too.  More patterns were collected for my crochet and knit stash. I didn't run out of things to preserve though.  Tomatoes were put into the dehydrator for tomato soups, pastas, stews, and even tomato powder.  It...

The rain that was predicted at 11am, was pushed back to noon.  Then it was pushed to 1pm, and again to 3pm.  I was starting to wonder if we'd even get any (again).  Later I checked it again, and it was once again pushed back to 4pm.    Our oldest daughter stopped out for a visit, and it sprinkled long enough for her to run from the porch to her car to roll up her windows.   Mother Nature is really making me work my bum off this season.  Hi-ho-Hi-ho, it's off to water I go..... While putting my roast in the crocky yesterday morning, I realized I has zero mushroom soup in the freezer.  I tend to have a few cans of organic store bought soup, but there was none to be had.  In desperation (or you could call it creativity), I had one can of organic crimini mushrooms and onions (no shallots either).  I whipped up a batch and it was just as fantastic on our roast as the original mushroom soup recipe I use.

I woke up to checking the weather yesterday, and saw rain was 60% at 10am and 90% at 1pm.  So, I adjusted my day.  I started by making 3 "cans" of homemade condensed mushroom soup.  Smelled so good too.  I love the smell of shallots cooking in butter.  Mmm.  The "cans" went into the freezer.  By the way, this soup on top of turkey breast, in the crock pot, tastes amazing. At 11am the rain had not arrived. At noon, no rain.  At 1:30pm?  No rain.  I chopped up a head of cauliflower to prep for dinner early.  Put that in the fridge and checked the weather again. 

I have been searching the organic section of our grocer for fresh thyme (sadly I did not put a pot of it in my kitchen last fall).  They seem to be out of it often. I decided to use my dried thyme and use less of it  (dried is more potent).  Most recipes that use 1 stick of organic butter, require about 3 Tablespoons of fresh herbs, plus garlic. I did not want garlic in my herbed butter for breakfast toast.  I wanted simply thyme.  Thyme has so many healthy qualities and I love the taste of it on toast with a few eggs.

I was up, and sipping through my first cup of coffee Tuesday morning, when my phone rang about 7:00am.  

Have you ever felt discombobulated when your routine is abruptly changed?  I do.  It throws off my thinking, activities or chores, for the entire day.  It forces me to be a different "me" for the day.  It forces me to be more creative.

First, the night before. . .   make a batch (best, or make ahead and freeze), of homemade condensed cream of mushroom soup.

On a whim, I decided to find a recipe for making my own condensed cream of mushroom soup.  There are many recipes I do not make anymore, simply because I don't want to feed my family those canned foods.