I’m sitting here listening to my sweet hubby laugh his head off as he is pulling up YouTube videos of “Carl” (Billy Bob Thorton) from the movie Slingblade making prank calls to restaurants and asking the clerks for “French fried pertaters and biscuits and I like some mustard with those biscuits, uh-huh”. The clerks are attempting to take this order with as much grace as possible. I have to admit that I’m laughing too. I guess I’m remembering the phone calls I used to make, from our church phone on Wednesday service nights no less, to Weigel’s Dairy Store in Knoxville, Tennessee to tell the clerk, in high pitched squeals, “Your cows are out!” immediately hanging up the phone. Real smooth, huh? Kinda like the phone calls my grandparents used to receive in the ’30’s, at their grocery store, where a voice asked if they carried Prince Albert in a can and with the answer in the affirmative, young voices would yell, “Then let him out!!” We are so brilliant when we are young. However, it seems that Mr. Thorton is still brilliant – he’s entertaining my husband, anyway!


I’ve noticed that in the blog world, bloggers of the feminine persuasion have dubbed their loving husbands with honorary names that reflect everything from their appearance to their personality. The Pioneer Woman refers to her life partner as her Marlboro Man while another at the Rural Revolution refers to hers simply as Husband of The Boss. I’ve been musing for the past few days about what I should title the perfect man in my life – the one who can fix literally anything, including a sad day. He can take a car apart and put it back together, as well as a computer and its software, a refrigerator, an antique telephone and my hair dryer and have them all working as a result. He fixes up Christmas for our adult kids, fixes boo-boos on the animals and is currently fixing a whole new room addition on the house complete with a wood stove. He says he’s suffered through the last ice storm without heat!! He even has a tool belt like Tool Time Tim of Home Improvements. So yep, that’s what the love of my life’s moniker shall be from now on; Mr. Fix-It. And as an aside, just to let you know, he says that he married me because I came with power tools!!

There is nothing I enjoy more than putting a piping hot meal before Mr. Fix-It after a long day’s work. I especially love him because he loves soup and that is one of my favorite things in the whole world on these cold days. But I’m weird. I love it on warm days too – homemade that is. When I go to Olive Garden, I’m the “Never Ending Soup and Salad” kinda gal. Therefore, it is really pleasant to have all of the ingredients for soup right at my fingertips, dried and ready to reconstitute for any quick, hot meal. In this fourth and final in my series on dehydrating, I’ve got a recipe for broccoli cheese soup that will leave you craving more. Let’s go!

Broccoli Cheese Soup


1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 Tbsp dried celery (1 stalk fresh chopped)
1 tsp dried bell pepper (tbsp fresh)
1 Tbsp dried onion (2 Tbsp diced fresh onion)
1/4 tsp dried garlic (1 tsp fresh, chopped garlic)
1/3 cup dried potatoes (1 cup cubed fresh potatoes)
1/2 cup dried broccoli (1 1/2 cup chopped fresh broccoli)
4 chicken bouillon cubes
4 1/2 cups water
1 can milk or 3/4 cups half and half
1/4 lb Velveeta Cheese + or –
1 Tbsp corn starch + 2 Tbsp water





Put 1 tbsp Olive Oil in a 3 qt sauce pan and add onion and dried garlic. Sauté. If using dried onions, just stir around a little to get the flavors going. That was the only thing I was out of. Gotta dry some more!





Add dried celery and dried bell pepper. For the purposes of less typing, I’ve included fresh equivilents in the recipe above but not in the directions, but you CAN make this with all fresh veggies





Add dried potatoes and continue stirring in the oil





Add dried broccoli





Add three cups of water and stir.





Add 4 chicken bouillon cubes. Bring to a boil and turn heat down to medium for a slow boil and cook for 30 minutes uncovered.





Add 1 1/2 cups additional water





Add one can of milk. The canned 2% and Fat Free is fine too. If you want a richer soup, you can use half and half





I canned Velveeta Cheese that was on sale (I’ll blog about that at a later date) and put it into 8 oz jars. Here, I have heated the jar to soften the cheese and am using 1/2 jar or not quite a 1/4 of a pound of Velveeta. You can add more or less according to your taste.





Mix one tablespoon cornstarch with 2 tablespoons COLD water until cornstarch is totally dissolved





As soup is boiling slightly, stir in cornstarch mixture and continue stirring to avoid lumps





You can make some corn muffins with my cornbread recipe and make everybody happy! I used my cast iron muffin pan. I love cast iron!





And there you have it. Soup that, if you dehydrate and can everything, can be made with no need for refrigeration and would be easy to make over a fire if the electricity goes out! In this state, that is no unusual circumstance!!

Happy Cooking!


MB