The title of this really should be, "Confessions of a Food Snob." As a child of the 50s, when cake mixes and "instant" foods first came on the market, I loved them at first. I remember those terrible homemade pizza mixes. We made them on Saturday nights before "Saturday Night at the Movies" and thought they were wonderful. Of course, this was long before we could pick up the phone and have a hot pizza delivered, so any pizza was wonderful. But I digress..
Twenty some years ago, I decided that nothing was ever going to be as good as homemade foods from scratch, the way Mom used to make it. For years, I didn't buy any pre-processed food kits and so I haven't kept up with the new technology and the new revolution that came with it. My loss.
I've been seeing those bags of instant homemade soups and dips and sauces at fairs and festivals, and I scowled at them. Maybe they're okay for the masses, but the masses didn't know what they were missing, huh? But I was intrigued. They just looked so inviting.
This past weekend at Oglebayfest, one vendor had samples of Evelyn's Elegant Edibles soups. Dave loves potato soup, and the one he had displayed looked so yummy. So, I forked over $7.50 for a package. A few minutes later, I ran into a friend who's a class or three above me in intelligence, wit, kindness, sideline deserved snarkiness about others to friends, and everything else funny and real. She noticed the bag containing EEE's Creamy Potato Soup, poked it with a well manicured finger and said, "That stuff is great!"
That sealed it. I made the soup, but like everything else I poke around with in the kitchen, I had to tweak it, but not very much. I used chicken and ham broth to reconstitute it, instead of water, threw in some smoked ham shank meat, and added a teaspoon of Sriracha sauce, of course. It's very, very good soup.
Bottom line? This stuff is really good, and so what else have I missed?