Dried soup Mixes we can LIVE with! AND WET SOUP MIXES THAT ARE CHEAPER AND MAKE US LIVE LONGER!

Your typical dried soup mix is easy, fast and admittedly delicious but how did it get that way? MSG in one form or another, a substance that makes your BRAIN SWELL UP in your head and push your ears out sideways and this toxic junk is what all commercial soup factories use. Brain swelling and gray cells pushing against inside of skull seem particularly delicious to you? No! So get your own soup mixes designed and made. (MANY recipes are suggested, below)

Here's the skivvy on MSG. It creates headaches, migraines, stomach upsets, diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma, panic attacks, heart palpitations, mental confusion, mood swings, neurological disorder symptoms like Parkinson's, MS, ALS, Alzheimer's and even behavior disorders to name a few. MSG is not an allergin, it is a chemical which creates a powerful drug reaction. This MSG over-stimulation of the brain cells actually kills the brain cells. Hey the sixties, if nothing else, proved that stimulating cells created the death of cells. Psychedelics could be recreational, but this isn't Kansas any more Toto.

SO WE WANT LEAN, MEAN, CLEAN SOUP and we want it fast and a lot of it and free. Or nearly free. Yep, we want to nutrify our brains and be vitaminized, smart, frugalize and survive the coming BIG DEPRESSION! You need to be in one piece, and dried soup or canned, with all that MSG, tasty though it is on the tongue, isn't the way!* (see more on MSG at end.) SO MAKE YOUR OWN SOUPs from scratch. Bottom line, WE HAVE to scorn envelopes, cans and frozen bricks and get our own soup mix going.

DRY STUFF WE NEED TO KEEP AROUND THE HOUSE FOR SOUPMAKING: . For all these years after the L.A. riots when we had curfews, no way to wait in a line with l00 people at the supermarket, I've saved staple goods, especially BUCKWHEAT SOBA NOODLES, Broccoli, ginger slices, raw, onion, sesame oil and fish fillets for my oriental fish soup. Chile Sesame oil, chiles.

I keep beans and split peas for when I get ham bones! And I keep pumpkin around in autumn with pork sausage for thicker, cold weather soups.

Stash your soba in the freezer, in a bag, keep it dry. Fish fillets are in there, too.  Keep lentils, pulse, beans, spices in rodent proof areas of shelves, in bags, in jars, sealed containers or in the freezer. These prove useful either when one runs out of  food late at night and is hungry or during the first bombs of World War III, --whichever comes first. Probably what's going to come first is the Great Recession.

When there's a sudden need for food, beans around you can make a filling, hearty meat, fish or vegetable soup. If you have more time, soak the dried pulse overnight til it comes alive, rinse, toss the water, then simmer with stuff from the yard, swiss chard, potatoes, carrots, celery, other vegies, a few chiles (always take seed for next Spring's planting), onions, garlic, old frozen ham bones. You get a great "PULL A RABBIT OUT OF A HAT" soup every time. Cupboards can be bare and everybody eats!

MEXICANS save their old corn tortillas, the ones that dry up like flying saucers. Fry lightly in oil into which you sauteed onion, garlic a little pepper, or chile pepper or bell pepper;  pour over some fresh tomato, some broth and hominey. Sopa de Tortilla. THey melt cheese on top. Beats all!

You want a delicious soup, let's put ingredients into the pot that we can't get with dry soup! Real fresh vegies, frozen basil leaves, cilantro, garlic, chile sesame oil, or plain sesame oil, (from Asian supermarket,) oil-jar preserved basil. Add MISO which is soup mix in CHINA and JAPAN which is a fermented soy paste that has a meaty taste, seaweed, (also from Asian supermarket,) dried mushrooms, chile slices, and nutritious TOFU which keeps our skin like a 20 year old when we're fifty and sixty. And a slash of lime or lemon to make it like china town sour soup. Add dashi which is bonito flakes, (VERY HARD TO FIND WITHOUT MSG so make your own flavor base, SOUP GURU tells you how....) and read up on all the other thing JAPANESE CUISINE uses in soup, meat or vegie dishes. Make a list of what appeals to you, then hit the ASIAN GROCERY STORE FOR REAL BARGAINS. CHILE SESAME oil, or toasted sesame oil, or just sesame oil must be purchased for salad dressings, stews and soups! And sesame seeds that you will toast and grind a few grains of salt into ...and store in a jar as seasoning salt.

MISO soup mix purchased at the healthfood store is costly. $3.79 for four little thin envelopes. Nearly a buck each bowl of soup. NAHHHHHH!. TOO MUCH! At An Asian grocery store, you'll find really good prices on DASHI, little crocks of miso paste, and the costly dried MISO SOUP, sea weed, brown rice, and all kinds of delicious noodles to make your soups exquisite including buckwheat noodles, (SOBA) also dried black shitake mushrooms and sesame oil and toasted sesame seed but I go to a regular supermarket and buy an envelope for 59c, toast it myself, keep in a little box on stove.

WE WANT TO FRUGALIZE when we cook. I buy a lot of cheese at once. The cheap stuff, KROGER JAC, $3.50 for an lb. Freeze the whole thing. Day I plan some soup with cheese melted on top, I take it out, thaw it a little slice of what I need and refreeze as I've seen cheese grow green fur!

I buy SOBA NOODLES on sale, 3 lbs at a time ($4.99,) as it's ten times cheaper than buying a little one day serving of SOBA!.. I buy FISH from the oriental supermarket, cuz nobody's cheaper. Dover Sole, 89c lb, POLLOCK frozen fillets, 3 lb bags .99c an lb! UNBELIEEABLE. I keep it in the freezer. BUYING sale items in bulk works.  Check  the Frugal Roo which is my frugal website. Be sure to find your local KOREAN, CHINESE, Thai or Japanese grocery and see what's out there MISO WISE! Once you have some goodies in your basket, here's the RECIPE:

SOBA AND FISH ORIENTAL SOUP - I do not fry the fish filet in oil though that would be acceptable. I simmer the fish fillet with broccoli, a fragment of chile jalapeno, a few dried mushrooms or fresh, a few oz of soba noodles, onion, carrot slices or grated shreds, slices of fresh ginger. When done, add them together, add sesame oil, soy sauce, lime juice, toasted sesame seeds, shreds of green onion. You can also add tofu pieces at the end. And let me tell you the greatest food advancement I've eaten in a while. Trader Joe's has bags of FALAFEL balls, flat burgerlettes frozen in a bag. When you're  making this soup, drop a few in there near the end as they only need 4 min simmer to thaw, or thaw first, then 1 min. Tastier than meat! No guilt either. Bag lasts you a month, too, in freezer. Or make your own falfafel balls.  BAG'EM AND FREEZE'EM.

HAMS AND YAMS, a STURDY PEASANT SOUP WHICH REJUVENATES US! Slow cook in crockpot, a melange of vegies,  water and ham bones. Use some antioxidant rich stuff,  greens, carrots, yams. Kombu and other seaweed, dried mushrooms. Simmer them in your water. I'd add broccoli but only last two min and only with slow simmer as broc gives you gas at high heat, or long time.

# Greens, yam slices,  fry lightly in oil first # Carrots really do help you to see in the dark. They contain beta-carotene, which is converted to vitamin A in the body (also called retinol because of its effect on the retina) and is vital for eye function. Add some slices of onion. In three or four minutes, it's ready. Add:

# Tofu. A Pound seems like a lot to buy but I change water daily and take a slice a day. Or you can freeze half of your tofu, fresh out of the box in little one inch strips, but marinate with a mix of lemon, sesame oil and soy sauce. Wrap in plastic wrap before they go in freezer. Drop one in soup while it simmers to warm it. Frozen tofu is a bit chewier than the unfrozen version, but that has its charms. I might marinate them in soy sauce, chile sesame oil and lemon or lime, bag them in plastic, freeze them that way. Give them a head start toward being tasty.

#Meat or Fish pieces, leftovers or mince up something. DASHI which is bonito flakes. HAM BONE is a major find!  I can't wait til Nick Cage does "HAMBONE, NATIONAL TREASURE." A recession film.

# Noodles. Have a 3 lb box of buckwheat noodles on hand as a staple. (Whole grain and very low glycemic index, so it's not going to give you diabetes.) Simmer them up separately from your cup of miso soup and your vegies. Drain the noodles when they are full cooked add to the soup or you get starchy soup water! (As a girl, I SAW THE JAP FILM "TAMPOPO" the ultimate ramen flick! Google it.

#MAGIC FLAVOR: a toothpick worth of chile pepper, seaweed flakes, dried shitake mushrooms or real fresh 'shrooms. Dried chiles, Chile Sesame oil. LIke four drops. LIME JUICE to freshen the final product! Lightly fry shrooms w. fat/garlic/onion/chile to load them w. flavor, throw whole pan into soup.

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WOW. That kinda soup is gonna make you forget Campbells' CHICKEN AND NOODLE! It's gonna make you say sayonara to BEAN soup and SPLIT PEA soup which (admit it!) gives you embarassing levels of GAS! Well, I won't banish them as they are the primo RECESSION ERA SOUPS. When you're starving and there is only a ham bone stuck in the back of the freezer and you can't leave the house as it's midnight and snowing or they ethnics are rioting and supermarkets close at sunset cuz it's dangerous to be out on the streets or drive to a market, --then you can throw together a super soup with dried peas or beans. However, this ORIENTAL bonito fish broth is what soup was always supposed to be, hot, spicy, rejuvenating, proteinacious, hearty.....taking a chunk of hunger out of your day! And not using calories to do it!

Commercial DRIED SOUPS of any sort are COSTLY. Whole Foods has MISO soups for a dollar each, each mug a buck? nah. Try Japanese, Korean or Chinese grocery stores. Barrio stores. You may get a better deal.

Next, visit JAPAN TOWN, or KOREA TOWN or CHINA TOWN and order their Miso soup which is a light but sturdy broth containing this wonderful, tasty FERMENTED SOY PASTE. It is usually served at breakfast in Japan and sometimes includes tofu, mushrooms, seaweed, or green onions or meat.

THIS came from ONLINE" Farmhouse Soup Mix in a Jar" Friends always give me their spice racks and spices when they move, a good time to make jars of this up and stick in freezer for hard times.

       2 tablespoons dried minced onion
       2 tablespoons dried parsley flakes
       2 teaspoons salt
       1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper
       2 tablespoons beef bouillon flakes
       1/2 cup quick cook barley
       1/2 cup dried split peas
       1/2 cup rice, uncooked, do not use instant
       1/2 cup dry lentils
       1/2 cup alphabet pasta, uncooked
       1 cup flavored spiral, macaroni, uncooked

In a small zip-type bag, add and mix the onion, parsley, salt, lemon pepper and bouillon.  Using a funnel, layer the ingredients in this order in a 1-quart jar: Barley, peas, rice and lentils, small pasta.Add   the zip-type bag with the seasonings.  Fill rest of jar with the spiral macaroni that is placed in a baggie. Seal the jar.   Attach the following instructions on a gift tag:

       Farmhouse Soup:
       Contents of jar
       3 quarts water
       2 stalks chopped celery,
       2 sliced carrots
       1 cup shredded cabbage
       2 cups diced tomatoes

       Put all ingredients into a stockpot over medium low heat. Cover and simmer about 1 hour, or until vegetables are  tender. Add macaroni last 15 minutes of cooking.

       Bean Soup Mix in a Jar
       2 cups dry black beans
       2 cups dry Great Northern beans (or any small white bean)
       2 cups dry red kidney beans
       2 cups dry pinto beans
       2 cups dry green split peas
In four 1-pint canning jars, layer beans in order given, dividing evenly between jars. For seasoning packets, use  four individual small sandwich bags or four 6-inch squares of plastic wrap not foil, it's toxic.  Into EACH seasoning packet (you'll need FOUR times this amount TOTAL for all four jars of soup mix), place:

       3 teaspoons beef (or vegetable) bouillon
       3 tablespoons dried chives (chopped)
       1 teaspoon salt
       1 teaspoon dried savory
       1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
       1/2 teaspoon black pepper
       1 bay leaf

       To Prepare Soup:
       3 hours before serving, rinse beans with cold, running water. Remove stones or shriveled beans. In a Dutch oven
       or stock- pot, bring beans and 9 cups water to boil for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit for 1 hour. Drain
       and rinse beans. Place beans, 5 cups of water, and seasoning packet contents into pot. Heat to boiling, reduce
       heat to low and simmer gently for 1 1/2 hours until beans are tender. Stir occasionally. Add one 16-oz. can
       stewed tomatoes with liquid (break up tomatoes). Heat to boiling. Reduce to low, and cook 15 minutes more.
       Discard bay leaf.

       Each jar of soup mix will make approximately 6 - 8 generous servings.
       Potato Soup Mix

       1 3/4 cups instant mashed potatoes
       1 1/2 cups dry milk
       2 tbsp. instant chicken bullion
       2 tsp. dried minced onion
       1 tsp. dried parsley
       1/4 tsp. ground white pepper
       1/4 tsp. dried thyme
       1/8 tsp. turmeric
       1-1/2 tsp. seasoning salt

       Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix. Place in 1 quart canning jars to store.

       Makes 6 servings.

       Instructions to attach to jar:
       To Serve: place 1/2 cup mix in soup bowl and add 1 cup boiling water. Stir until smooth.

For EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT MISO:
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/miso
 
 

*HOW  TOXIC IS MSG?? Years ago there was an article in Science News (don't have the issue number, but I am searching for it) which said that there was enough MSG in a packet of a well known brand of dried soup mix to kill a two year old child! Maybe all that autism is not Mercury in Vaccines, it's MSG in all adult SAVORY foods known to the marketplace! A rose by any other name might be as toxic!

Food Additives That ALWAYS Contain MSG

   Monosodium Glutamate [MSG]
   Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein [HVP]
   Hydrolyzed Protein; Hydrolyzed Plant Protein
   Plant Protein Extract
   Sodium Caseinate
   Calcium Caseinate
   Yeast Extract
   Textured Protein (Including TVP)
   Autolyzed Yeast
   Hydrolyzed Oat Flour
   Corn Oil

Food Additives That FREQUENTLY Contain MSG

   Malt Extract
   Malt Flavoring
   Bouillon
   Broth
   Stock
   Flavoring
   Natural Flavors/Flavoring
   Natural Beef or Chicken Flavoring
   Seasoning
   Spices

Food Additives That MAY Contain MSG Or Excitotoxins
   Carrageenan
   Enzymes
   Soy Protein Concentrate
   Soy Protein Isolate
   Whey Protein Concentrate
   Also: Protease Enzymes of various sources can release excitotoxin amino acids from food proteins.

SO, check the envelope of your dried soup mix for the many names of MSG. Another toxin in commercial mixes is the aluminum lining inside the bag even if it has a plastic coating! Lab tests have shown aluminum lined containers coated with plastic is no barrier from preventing the debilitating poisons in PACKAGING from leaching into our food. It gets in toothpaste from the aluminum seal at top, and all foods stored in it especially acidic tomato sauced food or lemon, which 'pull' aluminum. As I dress fresh caught fish with lemon before freezing, I don't use foil! I use plastic bags.

DASHI, BONITO FISH FLAVOR
http://www.mingspantry.com/misbrotwitta.html has best recipe, pictures, etc
Soup has konbu seaweed, that never is boiled, and l cup bonito flakes
Better than  dashi instant stuff w. MSG in Asian markets.
http://www.pacificeastwest.com/kasobats.html

NOW I'm working on HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN BONITO FLAKES.
We can catch that fish here in LA. I'll bet you can buy that fish where YOU are.
WHY dry it? Take a fillet, simmer it, there ya go! Asian markets have big
bags of frozen pollock fillets, $1.50 a lb usuall 3 lbs in the pckg. I get it
though it's a very delicate flavored fish, not like bonito. Wash off sulfites or
preservatives, frozen fillets wash just easy as can be.

LAST the staple of the FRENCH. When you only have bread and onions in the house, what do you do? Well, knock on your neighbor's door and get a few slices of swiss cheese, or hit the market get two oz parmesan and some swiss cheese and pay for it. If there's no money, back to the neighbor's house. .

French Onion Soup

1/2 lb firm white onions -- sliced
1/4 cup butter
2 Tbs corn oil
3 Tbs flour
1 qt chicken broth
1 qt beef broth
8 slices French bread
Swiss cheese -- shredded
Parmesan -- grated

Saute onions in butter and oil until onions are
transparent, but not well browned. When tender, turn heat
to lowest point and sprinkle with flour, stirring
vigorously. Pour into Dutch oven and stir in broths. Heat
thoroughly and divide among 8 oven-proof bowls. Float a
slice of bread atop each serving. Mix equal parts of
cheese to smooth paste and spread over bread. Place all
bowls on oven rack 4" from broiler heat and broil until
cheese melts. Serve at once. Leftover soup freezes well
up to 6 months.

signed, ANITA SANDS HERNANDEZ  astrology at earth link dot net
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