Ever add water to your recipes to expand them?  Sometimes I do this because I run out of a certain part of a recipes, ie for a sauce and the dish is almost finished and there isn’t enough sauce b/c it’s evaporated while cooking. And I’m cheap. I often do this with canned soup as I’m usually making it for more than one and I find that many of these cans don’t allow for more than one serving. But if you add water, you must add more flavoring. There’s nothing I  hate more than flavorless soups or meals…that I’ve cooked.

    I’m always trying to avoid the sodium thing, too and many of these canned soups come with alot of sodium. I try to find the ones that are labeled with less. Hence, in making more soup to soup that’s..already there one would think to add more soup base such as bouillon, which contains a lot of salt. So, I try to find the bouillon that’s again, labeled with less, or sodium free. The problem with these solutions is, these don’t taste so great in recipes you’re trying to make taste better.

       Sometimes I’ll find seasoning packets around from other meals or take-out we’ve ordered, Thai sauces, and the like. At least then, you know there’ll be a zing to it. But  I still haven’t found the ultimate solution to stretching soup iand making it taste good with out adding something too salty.

       I’ve done just about everything under-the-sun when improvising on canned soup, added leftover meat, vegetables, then throw in some fresh, usually celery, peppers, and leafy green I have at the time, add frozen veggies of I need more, leftover rice or pasta. 

 Yet I’m often left with, in the end , that there isn’t enough taste. I’ve tried Italian seasoning mixtures, not my favorite, Herbes en Provence, pretty much the same thing but a little better, sometimes I throw in seasonings I use to flavor meat. 

     Today I’m heating up some Progresso Chicken Gumbo ( lower sodium) and have added chopped celery, frozen oriental vegetable mix and some Uncle Ben’s Whole Grain Brown rice. Hope it comes it good, as it is warm and soothing for a day like this. In the meanwhile, I keep seeking that flavor…