Jeff's Almost Instant Soup

Back in August, Jeff Novick posted his thoughts on emergency food, now that hurricane season was starting up, and since he lives in Florida, there's always a chance they lose power. He and I corresponded on his forum about dried/dehydrated foods a year or so ago, too. Since then, I always had some dried veggies around the house. After this thread, I invested in even more of them. My favorite place to buy from is Harmony House - I've been buying dried veggies from them for over 20 years and never had a problem.

In that thread he shared his recipe for what he called Almost Instant Soup. I finally had all the veggies it called for and made a batch earlier this week. He's right - it does make a lot of soup and lasts a long time in the refrigerator! I made this up on Monday morning, and still have enough to last at least 4 more lunches after today.

Here's the basic recipe. The posts in the link above gives all the details:

1.5 cup dehydrated (not dry) lentils 
4 cups dehydrated vegetables. (Some of my favorites are carrots, onions, broccoli and green beans)
1 gallon of water

- Place all ingredients in a 6 -8 qt pot. Bring to a boil. Simmer 10-20 minutes. 
- Adjust water to make it thinner or thicker as desired.
- Add desired herbs, spices to taste.

Along with those ingredients I added a quarter cup of dehydrated soup vegetables blend from Frontier Co-Op. Even though there's nothing else in this, just the dried veggies, it has a unique taste, as if there are added spices or herbs. And since I'm unimaginative when it comes to spicing foods, I also added 3 tablespoons of Mrs. Dash Table Blend, too. I should have left this out and just gone with the added flavor of the soup mix. I used my 8 quart Instant Pot on Sauté then Keep Warm to make this - it was the only pot I own that was big enough.

It's delicious! And since I bought the gallon sized jug of all the ingredients that Jeff recommended, I can have this for every lunch all winter long without having to go out shopping and never be bored! If I want a change of taste, I'll add a can of diced tomatoes or choose one of the many other versions of Mrs. Dash I have in the kitchen. 

What else can I say about this soup, but YUM!

Thanks again for a delicious recipe, Jeff!

OK, Mother Nature, bring on Winter! Between those dried veggies, all the canned tomatoes, bagged beans, boxes of broth, bags of pasta, and all the other staple items stuffed every nook and cranny of this little apartment, we're ready if you want to start dumping a few feet of snow on us every few weeks. Of course, I'd much rather you didn't, but I'm ready if you do.