Condensed Cream of Celery Soup for Casseroles (Freezable)

Here's another recipe featuring one of the budget fall vegetables that I wrote about last week, celery. 

This isn't one of those "must follow this recipe exactly" sort of recipes. Play around with the seasonings. Add just a bit of what's recommended then adjust according to what you have on hand and what you prefer.

This recipe makes about 2 10.5-ounce cans worth of condensed cream of celery soup. This is so good in tuna casserole. In my household of 4 adults, it's double what I need for a single tuna casserole using 2 cans of tuna and about 1  1/4 cups of dried macaroni noodles plus a cup or two of vegetables. I freeze the leftover half of the batch to use in a future casserole. 

Condensed Cream of Celery Soup

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup diced onion
2 1/2 cups diced celery and leaves (if you like a "whiter" soup, use only the ribs, no leaves)
1 clove garlic, minced
1/3 cup flour
1 1/2 cups rich milk or milk substitute
1/2 cup stock (vegetable or chicken) or water
1 to 1  1/4 teaspoons salt (add the lesser amount and adjust according to taste)
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
3-4 quick dashes nutmeg
a pinch sugar
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/8 teaspoon celery seed
1 tablespoon butter, optional

Melt the butter in the oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Saute the onion in the melted butter/oil until translucent. Add the diced celery and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add garlic.

Stir in 1/3 cup flour. While stirring, slowly pour in the liquids (milk and stock). Cook, while continuing to stir, until the sauce thickens. 

Stir in seasonings. Remove from heat. Allow to cool for a few minutes. Blend in a pitcher blender, or with an immersion blender, or in a food processor.

For additional richness, especially if using a dairy alternative milk, swirl in 1 additional tablespoon butter. Taste for seasonings and add more if desired.

If you don't have all of the herbs and spices, this will still turn out tasty for use in a casserole.

Yields 3 cups of condensed soup or the equivalent of two 10.5 ounce cans of cream of celery soup.

This soup can be frozen to use in casseroles in the future. Stir well upon thawing. 

As for cost . . .

If I were to buy all of the above ingredients, the cost for this recipe would be about $1.30 or less for two cans worth, or 65 cents per can! Walmart's Great Value brand Cream of Celery Soup sells for 92 cents per can. Campbell's Cream of Celery sells for a whopping $1.72 per can. That's $1.30 for 2 cans homemade vs $1.82 for 2 cans Great Value or $3.44 for 2 cans Campbells. 

What if you don't love or don't have celery? You can make a thick white sauce for binding casseroles, or make a cream of whatever-vegetable-you-have condensed soup following the above recipe using said vegetable in place of celery. For the most part, the flavor of the binding condensed soup is significantly muted by the other casserole ingredients.

So there's the recipe for the condensed soup to use in casseroles. Stay tuned for tomorrow's post as a continuation of this one.

Our neighborhood is doing something really fun right now

It started with one of my daughters baking brownies to share with a neighbor who spent a small fortune on fireworks for the 4th off July that they set off in the front of their house so everyone could watch. Next another neighbor gave a bunch of neighbors some fresh melons. This was followed by yet another neighbor with plum and fig trees that produced abundantly. She shared her bounty with several of the neighbors. Then my other daughter baked some blackberry pies and delivered slices of pie to several neighbors, including the melon neighbors and plum/fig neighbor. 

The plum and fig neighbor shared even more plums and figs. I baked a large batch of  mini pumpkin loaves and paired it with some nice tea for neighbors. Then this afternoon, someone left a box of fresh apples on our doorstep with a note that simply said "went apple picking, some to share" signed by her first name. We're racking our brains trying to figure out which neighbor this is. I think I'll be doing more baking this week to deliver to our neighbors.

Anyway, this has been a fun and spirited season in this neighborhood, which is saying a lot. We're not known for the "Seattle chill" for no reason. People generally keep to their own friend group in my area. But this has been fun. Maybe our neighborhood is turning over a new leaf.