Print the recipe card!  split pea soup – soup in a jar

Today I’m featuring our second tester, Kat’s review of the book “Soup in a Bag” by Pam Emick.  Enjoy!  In other happenings, I thought I’d let you know I was thrilled to be invited to contribute over on Deseret Book’s Time Out for Women’s blog today!!  Fingers crossed that it snags some new readers to get excited about cooking with their food storage!

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Hi, my name is Kat.  I’m the grandma in a three generation household in the Pacific Northwest.  I’ve been putting together our food storage a little bit at a time for quite a while as it’s recommended to do by my church.  It just seems like a great idea, especially with the state of the world today.  I work full time for an accounting firm and have a Stampin’ Up!  business (you’ll find me here), so I actually do very little cooking, but I do try to test a food storage recipe for our family food storage cookbook at least once a week.
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I’ll eat almost anything, but my daughters and grandchildren are VERY picky.  I was so grateful to be chosen to test Soup in a Bag!  There is at least one good recipe in there for everyone in my family.  And I love the method the author uses to put the recipes together in advance.  The recipes and methods in the book fascinate me and I look forward to trying more of them out, and to putting together some bags for quick and easy meals (and maybe gifts). I loved reading the recipes, and now I want to try her other book Bread in a Bag.  

We tried Corn Potato Cheddar Chowder, Chicken Noodle Soup and Split Pea Soup. Most of my family refuses to try food storage recipes; they say they’ll eat them when they have too. These recipes helped to convince them food storage isn’t disgusting.

The first recipe we tried was the Corn Potato Cheddar Chowder. My granddaughter Leah really wants to learn to cook, so she was my assistant. She did most of the measuring and stirring and both of us loved how easy it was for her to cook with food storage.

I’ve been stocking up on freeze dried foods, but haven’t tested a lot of them. In fact, this was the first time we tried freeze dried corn.  I was amazed from the second the water hit the corn. It smelled like fresh picked corn, and after it was cooked it was way better than canned and better than a lot of frozen. Overall, we all thought the soup was wonderful and it will get made again. The only thing we will change about it is cooking the potatoes some before we add them to the soup. They either need more to rehydrate, or we just like them cooked more. The soup was really good.

The second recipe we tried was the Chicken Noodle Soup recipe, because chicken noodle soup is a family favorite and always good comfort food. My children (all adults) aren’t real fans of homemade soup and really think soup should come from a can, so I thought it would be good to try something they already liked. The recipe was really quick and easy. We didn’t have any issues with it, although I would have liked smaller noodles, but it wasn’t a big hit either. It’s definitely worth keeping, but won’t be a favorite.

The final recipe I tried was a treat for me. Split Pea Soup is one of my personal favorites and no one else in my house will touch it. I’ve been watching for a recipe I could adapt for food storage for quite awhile. I was really excited to find one already adapted! I loved how easy it was to make, and will definitely be packaging some bags of this for myself. It has great flavor, too. Next time I cook it though I will probably double the cooking time (to a whopping 30 minutes), as not all the peas were tender, and the ham could have used a little more rehydrating.   All in all, these soups have been a great addition to our food storage recipes. Thank you so much for the opportunity!

Split Pea Soup 

In Mylar bag:

1 oxygen absorber packet

1 cup split peas

Add-in:

4 cups water (2 boiling)

Optional:  chunks of canned ham

In baggie #1 inside Mylar bag:

4 tsp. Knorr chicken or vegetable bouillon

1/4 cup ham TVP (unless using canned or freeze dried ham)

1 TBS dried celery

1 TBS dried carrots

1 TBS dried onion

1/8 tsp. coarse ground black pepper

1 TBS butter powder

1/4 tsp. marjoram

1 bay leaf

Note:  do not add salt

To make:

Open Mylar bag.  Discard oxygen absorber packet.  Pour peas from Mylar bag into a bowl.  Add 2 cups boiling water and stir.  Let peas absorb water for 30 minutes.  Pour softened peas into a cooking pot.  Open baggie and pour all seasonings into the cooking pot.  Add 2 cups water and stir to combine.  Bring all to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer on low (or transfer to a wonder oven) for 15 minutes.  All vegetables should be tender.  Remove bay leaf before serving.