Since trying to change our family’s way of eating, I have had to cut out some convenient items such as Cream of Chicken and Cream of Mushroom. While I am not oppose to EVER using these, I did know that it was possible to make my own versions of them from scratch and was excited to find a recipe that worked for us. It also is CHEAPER to make it yourself and much better for you.

I never realized what all was in the can cream of chicken soups… funny how so often we just buy things without even looking at what is in it. Guilty.

Here is a list of what is in Campbells Cream of Chicken:

Chicken Stock, Chicken Fat, Modified Food Starch, Wheat Flour, Cooked Chicken Meat, Cream (milk), Water, Salt, Cooked Mechanically Separated Chicken, Margarine, Corn, Cottonseed, Canola and/or Soybean Oil, Water, Beta Carotene (for color), Contains Less than 1% of Dried Whey (milk), Soy Protein Concentrate, Monosodium Glutamate, Yeast Extract, Flavoring, Vegetable Oil, Soy Protein Isolate, Sodium Phosphate, Yeast Extract, Chicken Flavor (contains chicken stock, chicken powder, chicken fat), Chicken Flavor, Spice Extract, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oil, Butter (milk).

Please note… Im not condemning the use of these items… Ive used them and I am sure there will be times I rely on them for some reason or another… I am just putting this information out there to inform as I appreciate those who inform me too…. Hope that made sense :) Its late….

This recipe is SO easy… and freezes very well. Because I use cream of chicken A LOT for recipes, I went ahead and TRIPLED the original recipe… in order to make a rather large batch. I stored it in small glass jars and froze them. You can freeze in glass btw, just be sure you do not fill the glass jar to the rim… you need to leave a little space for it to expand as it freezes. You could store it in a plastic freezer bag or container though, glass isn’t a must.

Ingredients:

2½ cups chicken broth
(I make my own broth, will share recipe below
but two swanson cans would work)
1½ cups milk
¾ cup flour
(I used white hard wheat, but white flour would work fine too)
1 tablespoon seasoning mix (I used ½ tsp. onion powder, ½ tsp. garlic powder, ½ tsp. black pepper, 1 tsp. salt, ½ tsp. parsley, etc)

Directions:

Put the broth and 1/2 cup of milk into a sauce pan. Bring it to a low boil.

In another bowl whisk flour, seasoning and the rest of the milk (1 cup) until smooth. This will form a thick mixture.

Pour the flour and milk mixture into the saucepan with the broth mixture and stir constantly…. whisking as the mixture simmers. Continue to simmer and stir/whisk until the mixture is smooth and thick, 5 minutes or so. The mixture will thicken a bit as it cools. Also if you FREEZE it, when you thaw it out, the mixture may be to thick, if this happens you can just add a bit of extra milk or water to it after its thawed.

Any time I have to cook a meal with cream of chicken or even cream of mushroom, I just pull one of the jars out the night before to let it thaw through the night and its ready to go in the morning. Its very easy and I love that I always have some on hand.

Original Recipe from HERE

Now! For the Homemade Chicken Broth.

There are lots of methods to make your own broth. I do not claim to have the best recipe :) – but for me it works great… and I have made it many times.

Ingredients:

1 Broiler Chicken (I get mine from Trader Joes) – aka a whole chicken
A large stock pot or slow cooker (I use my slow cooker)
1 tsp Real Salt
1/2 tsp or so Pepper (I honestly don’t really measure, im guessing this a bit… but its just to taste basically)
1 Onion cut in half
1 cluster of Garlic
2 whole Carrots
2 whole stalks of celery
A dash of Parsley
and Water :)

Directions:

I place the whole chicken into my crock pot and then fill it up with filtered water. The water just needs to cover up most of the chicken, with a little bit peaking out. I then sprinkle in the salt, pepper, parsley all around… then place in the onion cut in half, I dont even skin it… Just slice it in half and throw it in. I throw in the garlic completely whole too, no skinnng it either. I then place the carrots in and celery (leaves and all!) and then cook it on low in my slow cooker for 24 hours. Yup… 24 hours. :) Cooking it that long helps to get the healthy fats from the bone marrow… it sounds crazy to do but it isn’t hard and makes your house smell so yummy.

Once you take the chicken out you would just strain the broth with a large strainer into a big bowl…. and then you would take the chicken broth out to make your Cream of Chicken recipe or if you want you can save the broth as is to use in soups and other recipes. I actually keep BOTH cream of chicken ready to go and plain broth ready to go at all times. I store both in the glass mason jars.

I hope some of that made sense :) – Sorry I don’t have any cool pictures to go along with the recipes. Its been rather busy for us lately… with lots of sessions as well as moving… so Im kind of neglecting my blog. I thought Id share this recipe though as it is a staple here and I enjoy making it.

Oh! and the meat from the chicken you shred and store in your fridge. I use it up in a few days and make quesadilla’s, chicken casseroles, chicken sandwiches, etc..etc… there is lots you can do with it and the meat is super tender.

Enjoy! :)

This is a recipe I tried a few weeks ago while at one of my favorite stores Bread Beckers. They had a sample platter out and this was one of their sample dishes. Oh man… As soon as I tasted it, I had to have the recipe. They generously gave it to me, on the spot. I came home and had to make it.

I did use the “fool proof” whole grain bread recipe I posted a few weeks ago (thanks aliesha!), instead of the traditional bread recipe in the bread beckers cook book. This new bread recipe has become our family favorite… so I knew incorporating it with the ingredients they told me to add to make this orange zest bread… was going to be awesome.

So here goes….

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups freshly milled whole wheat flour (I used hard white)
1 cup warm water (give or take – see instructions below)
1 squeezed organic naval orange
(also grate off the zest from that orange)
2 tsp. yeast
2 Tbsp. sucanat (or you can use honey)
1 1/2 tsp. real salt
2 Tbsp. olive oil (optional)
Handful of dried Cranberries

(update: – The cup of water is a guestimate. To ensure your loaf isnt to dry, what you need to do is to squeeze your orange into a measuring cup. For me, I got around 1/4 cup – 1/3 cup orange juice from my naval orange… whatever amt. of juice you get, you subtract that from the amount of water you typically would put in the recipe. Which is normally a cup 1/2. So, squeeze your orange into measuring cup, then fill the rest up ti the 1 1/2 cup line with water. I hope that makes sense. The 1 cup above is just an general amount… but stick with the idea of a cup 1/2 of liquid…. )

Directions:

For the sake of my time, I will not be writing out how to knead and make the dough for this bread… if you are new to bread making however, you can check out Aliesha’s post, she has a walk through that is very helpful on how to make your bread dough.

What I do though, is I throw all the ingredients together (minus the cranberries). Make my dough. Allowing it to rise at least once before shaping into a loaf. Once dough has risen once, I then sprinkle a few dried cranberries onto the dough, roll one edge over that, kind of like im folding a big fat towel?… I hope that makes sense. I then sprinkle a few more cranberries, then fold over again. You basically want to just distribute the dried cranberries throughout your loaf. I didn’t count how many I put in there ;-) – you just put however many you want.

I then shape into my loaf shape, place into greased loaf pan… cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise slowly in fridge for 1-2 hours… then remove from fridge after it has risen, bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes.

I love toasting mine and serving it with some awesome organic salted butter. OH MAN ITS GOOD.

Enjoy! Comment if you have any questions :)