Cheating At Chicken Soup

      The past week was a vacation for me, mostly spent trying to catch up on sleep.  The weather was just chilly enough to make working outside impractical for more than a few minutes at a time.

      It was chilly enough to make a bowl of soup for dinner look like a good idea; but I'd been lazy and had run out most of my fresh vegetables and I hadn't thawed any meat.  The canned stuff is okay, but....  Surely I could do better.

      I had a packet of condensed chicken noodle soup that claimed to make three cups.  Of course, it's mostly broth and noodles.  I keep canned meat in the pantry; I always have, but the pandemic prompted me to maintain a pretty good assortment* and there was a big (9.5 oz.) can of white meat chicken.  That's a start!  I had half an onion and a few carrots in the fridge, too, and a small can of mushrooms.  Dicing and sauteing the carrots and onion, and adding the well-drained canned chicken before three cups of water (and a dab of this and that, sage and thyme mostly) was a good start.  When the water boiled, I added the soup mix and mushrooms, and let it simmer for a few minutes.

      No, it's not as good as home-made.  It was a lot better than any canned chicken noodle soup, though, and just the thing before a night that was going to reach freezing and stay there until the sun was well up.
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* It's a bet with myself, a few cans each of salmon, corned beef, chicken and Spam.  With them and my supplies of rice, pasta, canned tomatoes and beans, I could do all right for a month or more while supply chains sorted themselves out.  Longer-term?  I live in the city; if things go longer than that, there's probably no outwaiting them.