Homemade Organic Cream of Mushroom Soup

Here is a recipe for homemade organic cream of mushroom soup that is way better than the canned variety you buy in the store.  You can also make it without using organic ingredients, if you so desire.

Ingredients for organic Cream of Mushroom soup.

The chicken broth pictured in the glass bowl is also homemade using organic chickens.  Misty usually makes a batch every week or so when we roast two 3lb chickens for dinner.  She then takes all of  the bones and slow cooks them overnight with some other vegetables and herbs to make the broth.  Usually, it ends up being more like jello, which means it is very good chicken broth.

Maybe I can show that recipe in a future post.

As for the cream of mushroom soup, here are the ingredients which are all organic, but do not have to be:

3 tablespoons all purpose flour
2 tablespoons butter

2 cups chicken broth
1 glove garlic
1 cup heavy cream
8 oz mushrooms
1 small onion chopped
1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

First thing is to chop up your mushrooms and onions.  We like them chopped small, but you can chop them medium or however you like.

Chopping up the mushrooms and onions.

Next you will want to melt the butter in a pot large enough to hold it all.  We used a 5 quart pot which was more than big enough.

Melting the butter.

Next add in your mushrooms and onions and saute until the onions are soft.

Sauteing mushrooms and onions until the onions are soft.

After about six or seven minutes it should look like the below picture, depending on how high your heat is and how small you chopped the mushrooms and onions.

What your mushrooms and onions should look like after sauteing for six or seven minutes.

Next add in your flour and stir it in throughly.

Adding flour.

You can now add in the chicken broth. 

Adding in chicken broth.

While keeping it on the heat, stir in the chicken broth until it thickens a good bit.

Thickening the soup after the chicken broth is added.

Next comes the heavy cream and the rest of the seasonings.

Adding in the heavy cream.

 

Adding in the last of the heavy cream.

Now stir it all together and let it thicken a little more until it is at the consistency you like.  Serve and enjoy!

Finished Organic Cream of Mushroom Soup.

This is a very easy and quick recipe for this soup.   We will make two or three batches and then freeze it in ZipLock bags to use later on.

No store bought soup can compare and this is so much healthier.  The main reason for this blog is to share with you how easy it is to make your own. 

So next time you crave a nice bowl of Cream of Mushroom soup or have a recipe that calls for it, try this recipe and let us know whether it measures up.

If you are not a follower of our blog, please register with Google+ and become one.  We are curious as to the number of followers we have, that have not registered.  We would also love for you to like our Livelyrv Facebook page and check in with us from time to time.  Comments are also very welcome as we would love to hear from you.

Until next time, may God bless you and keep you safe.

Thanks!

Don, Misty, and Kids...

 

Camping Near Duke

For the past couple of months we have been staying near Duke University in order for our aunt to receive treatment for a brain tumor that was discovered a few months ago.

Misty's aunt is living with us in the RV, which makes our close quarters even closer.  But it has all been good and believe it or not, we have not gotten on each others' nerves at all.

If anything it has been a real pleasure to offer our RV to our aunt so that she would not have to pay for a hotel for her three months of treatment and doctor appointments.  Family takes care of family and we feel God has given us this way of life, so that we could assist in this matter.

The kids with Aunt Lynn.

While attending service at Hope Creek Church, we met a family who invited us over for dinner one Sunday evening.  We had such a great time and before leaving we made plans to get together again.

 We ended up visiting the Sarah P. Duke Gardens on a Wednesday  afternoon which is fifty five acres of beautiful gardens, landscapes, ponds, and woods located in the center of Duke University's campus.  Here is a map of the gardens, if you are interested.

There are over five miles of trails that take you through it all with beautiful views of water fountains, and four distinct types of gardens.  Free admission is a big plus and it never seems to be very crowded even though it receives over 300,000 visitors a year.

Welcome to Duke Gardens.

Entry gate to the gardens.

Walkway down to the Mary Duke Biddle Rose Garden / Roney Fountain.

Courtney, Avery, Tia, Ian, Chloe, Ethan, Don, & Misty posing in front of the fountain.

One of the cute gazebos that bridge one garden section to another.
This one is between the Historic Gardens and the H.L. Blomquist Garden of Native Plants.

Even the rest room's architecture is pleasant to the eye.

The Pergola viewed from the Historic Terraces.

Molly and Avery enjoying the fish in the Historic Terraces and Fish Pool.

Another view of the Pergola from the Historic Terraces.

A nice spot to rest while enjoying the bamboo in the Culberson Asiatic Arboretum.

The garden at the Burpee Learning Center and a reconstructed tobacco barn.

A tub of meat eating plants.

A beautiful pitcher plant.

A Yellow Pitcher Plant with a view of its deadly water.  Deadly to insects, that is.

My favorite meat eating plant, the Venus Flytrap.

Another deserving fly that ended up as a meal.

Cute little piece of citrus fruit named Calamondin which is also known as a miniature orange, but used more like a lime.

Beautiful steps of stone and a grist mill grinding wheel. 

All in all we had a wonderful time with our new friends and really enjoyed our walk through the gardens.  We walked a good two plus miles that day, so not only did we enjoy our company and surroundings, but felt good in the fact that we got some much needed exercise.

It was also nice to let the kids run wild and burn off a lot of their stored up energy.  It is always easier to put them to bed on days like these, when we wear them plum out.  The trick is to let them wear out, without wearing you out in the process.

One of the many frogs at the Blomquist Pavilion pond.

The pond at the Blomquist Pavilion was a perfect backdrop and had just enough stepping stones to get a picture of all the kids, including Allison and Molly, who are two of our friends' kids from church.

Ethan, Allison, Avery, Tia, Courtney, Ian, & Molly at the Blomquist Garden pond.

 Also during our walk the kids had a chance to feed the waterfowl while at the Garden Pond in the Culberson Asiatic Arboretum section of the gardens.

Ethan, Allison, Ian, & Avery feeding the waterfowl at the Garden Pond.

We want to thank God for all of his blessings and the opportunity to help out our family in their time of need.  We also want to thank Him for guiding us to such good friends while on the road and keeping us safe.

Everywhere we have gone, we have always met just the right people to make our stay a better one.

Coincidentally one of the neighbors in the RV lot next door is actually from Fayetteville, West Virginia and knows where the Lively Family land is at, in Fayette County, where my father grew up.

Another coincidence is that an eleven year old girl, that the kids met just down the street, is also from West Virginia and still has family living in Charleston, close to where we used to live.

I've always heard that the North Carolina license plate is an alternate West Virginia license plate due to West Virginians migrating to North Carolina for work, so maybe it is true since everyone we met, seems to have connections to West Virginia.

Until next time may God bless you too!

Thanks!
Don, Misty, and Kids...

 

Strawberry Fields Finally

While visiting North Carolina we stumbled upon a pick your own strawberry farm, which is something Misty has wanted to do ever since we hit the road.  Actually, it originally started with a pick your own blueberry farm, but we missed the season last July, while in Alabama.

Luckily the strawberries are in season, so we made sure that we did not miss our chance this time.  Everyone participated in the picking and eating, to include Chloe.

Chloe eating one of the strawberries we picked.

"Yum!  That's a sweet strawberry!", says Chloe.

When you first enter the strawberry patch, they have instructions posted on how to properly pick strawberries.  Like everything, there is a right way and a wrong way to pick them.  You can go here to see some tips on picking strawberries.

Courtney, Ian, Tia, Ethan, and Avery ready to start picking strawberries.

From back to front, Tia, Ethan, Ian, Courtney, Avery, Chloe, Don, and Misty at the strawberry farm.

Strawberries ready for the picking.

Avery examining one of the strawberries he just picked.

Some lovely strawberries Misty picked.

With two adults and six kids, it did not take us long to pick a bunch of strawberries.  Everyone did a pretty good job, except for Chloe who did not really understand the importance of only picking ripe strawberries.

Below is a picture of what each one of us picked.  I'm not going to say who did the best, but let you decide from the pictures.  Do not be afraid to comment on who you think picked the most.

Strawberries picked by Ethan.

Strawberries picked by Courtney.

Strawberries picked by Tia.

Strawberries picked by Ian.

Strawberries picked by Avery.

Strawberries picked by Misty.

Strawberries picked by Don.

All in all it was a pretty good time and later on that night I was tired of cutting up strawberries and getting rid of the tops.  

We did notice that after picking them for a while, all of our wrists and forearms broke out a little from the strawberry plant leaves constantly brushing against our skin.  Next time, we're wearing long sleeves or long gloves.

We also discovered that Courtney is allergic to strawberries when she broke out in a rash after eating a good many of them.  We will have to keep an eye on her from now on.  Miss Courtney insists that she is only allergic to the tops and says she will not eat that part anymore.  We wish that were the case, since she loves strawberries so much!

We want to go picking one more time before the season is over, which I think is next week or so, but even if we miss that, we finally made it to a pick-your-own farm.  I'm sure there will be more of them in our future travels.

The fruits of our labor.  There were more but we ate some before getting back to the RV.

We pray that your harvests are as plentiful as ours and that you are blessed as well as we are.  May God look down on us all with his loving grace and keep us protected.

Thanks!

Don, Misty, and Kids...