Cooking with Campbell's Soup

I love to bake but cooking is not my thing. I can get your basic meal on the table but I don't have much fun doing so. Cooking, to me, is a chore right up there with laundry and cleaning the shower. I do it because it has to be done. I do it because, for reasons unbeknownst to me, my four and soon-to-be seven year old have yet to learn to do it for themselves.

Or for me, for that matter.

When I was a kid, other than for the occasional spaghetti or meatloaf dinners, I was not made to learn how to cook. My helping out in the kitchen was mainly regulated to peeling and chopping the veggies (which, for some odd reason, I was insanely eager to do), and to cleaning up afterwards. And that was just fine with me. Being a last-born baby, I was perfectly at ease with the system of having my plate of food magically appear before me each and every night. Who am I to mess with a working system?

When Paul and I were first living together, our dinners consisted mainly of Taco Bell and the occasional spaghetti which, despite this being one of the meals I did learn as a young adult, Paul would actually make. I think I may have buttered the garlic toast but I can't be sure. It could be that I just think I buttered the garlic toast but, since it has been so many years, I am now simply confusing fantasy with an actual memory.

After a year together we moved to Omaha where we lived for two years. Yes, you read that right, we really did do this once before. During those two years, we barely had a dime between us so it didn't take long before we realized that cooking at home made more financial sense than eating out every night did. Sometimes, it takes us awhile.

So we did what any kitchen-savvy young couple would do. We went to the grocery store, grabbed a very large bag of pre-cooked, heat-n-eat chicken breasts, threw it in the cart and then filled the rest of the cart with .89 cent boxes of Pasta Roni. We were set to feast!

And feast we did! For about three months. Actually, I don't think we even lasted that long. It doesn't take long at all, really, for one to get tired of heat-n-eat chicken breasts and Pasta Roni four or more nights a week. The day finally came when I had had enough. I was going to figure out this cooking thing even if it killed me.

I remembered I had a cookbook in the top cupboard above that stove-thingy. I got it out, dusted it off (and I mean that literally as it was a few years old and had remained wholly untouched) and started looking through it. It was a Campbell's Soup Recipe book. Each and every recipe started out with a Campbell's soup as a main ingredient. What I liked about this cookbook was it gave you three to four variations for each recipe so you could tweak it to your liking. I picked out a couple recipes and made my grocery list.

Once home from grocery shopping, I set out to make my very first "real" meal. I was happily surprised to discover how easy it was! So easy, in fact, that from that point on, for a very long time, recipes from the Campbell's Soup Recipe book became a mainstay. There were times, even, when I found myself at the grocery store without a list or a plan, I would simply head to the soup aisle, pick out a couple cans of Campbell's soup that had recipes on the back and proceed to do my grocery shopping from there. Hey, whatever works, right?

I like to think that I've come a long way since then and, in some ways I have, but I have got to admit that cooking with soup is still easy and convenient. Somewhere along the way, I lost that original cookbook but have, through my luck at garage sales, picked up two more. Over the next weeks, maybe even months, I'm going to be sharing with you recipes from those two cookbooks. Even if you are well adept in the kitchen, you still may find something new to try or a twist on an already favorite recipe of yours. If you are like me and simply not all that passionate about cooking, you might find something inspirational to get you passionate. Or, at least, not be so bored about it. Either way, I hope there is something for everyone.

I'll keep up with it until I've gone through the majority of the recipes or until my food starts to magically appear before me again. Whichever comes first! :)