Cream of Mushroom Soup with Roasted Garlic

Today I fucked up.

I brought some really tasty sounding soup for lunch. It's cream of mushroom with roasted garlic. Score, right? Wrong.

It's condensed and requires you to add milk. I don't have any milk though.

So, I ask you, what would happen if I

A) Didn't use any milk and just heated it up and ate it straight?
or
B) Added water instead of milk?

Which would be the better alternative? I don't plan to eat it with anything, just straight. No crackers, nothing like that. Just mushroom soup and a water bottle.

You'll just end up with a thinner, lighter soup.

Usually, the recommendation of milk in cream soups is there for a reason, but just adding water is not going to make it substantially worse, just less creamy tasting.

What if I didn't add anything at all?

You wouldn't want to do that. It is thick enough as is straight from the can. Condensed soups of the "cream" variety will not heat evenly enough if you cook it on a stove and will have a tendency to burn. Having some sort of liquid to make it more fluid helps it cook better.

Perhaps if you put it in a bowl and microwave it, heating it as is won't be so much a problem, but will require frequent mixing to ensure even cooking.

Hmm... yeah, I'm going to be using the microwave at work. Heck, I still don't know what I should do. I mean, it could go either way. I just wish I had some milk. ;___;

Ah, just add some water and try it. You never know what's the right or wrong way to do it unless you do it. Granted, I never had this situation myself, but I would go right ahead anyway. At least you're eating something?

I think Campbell's has this "Soup at Hand" thing that is microwaveable and takes the guesswork out of everything. Check it out right here, they have Cream of Mushroom amongst the selection.

Oh yeah, I know about that stuff. It's just that I grabbed this out of my buddy's cupboard in a haste this morning. The label sounded pretty good.

That'll teach me to trust my judgement at 4 in the morning when I'm stealing food. .__.

Lunch is either in an hour and fifteen minutes, or two hours and fifteen minutes, my choice, but either way I'll be back to report on the results. I'm going to add water. I mean, you usually add water to chicken noodle soup... but I guess that's a lot different.

Oh and on another note, I should add that I don't even really like Cream of Mushroom soup at all. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't have even taken it if it didn't say "roasted garlic" on it. I love garlic.

Additional Spam:
Problem solved. Looks like I'll be able to enjoy the soup the way it was intended to be.

Someone donated some food to me (after laughing at my soup dilemma >:[) so I'm just going to save the can until I get home and enjoy it properly.

In the future, check to see if your workplace has coffee available. If there is, then chances are there's also creamer. In a pinch, half-and-half can be substituted for milk in recipes that don't specifically call for skim. You may have to crack open a bunch of those little plastic half-and-half cups but it'll be worth it when your soup doesn't taste like shit.

If there's only non-dairy creamer, such as Coffee Mate, put several tablespoonfuls in a seperate cup and slowly add water while stirring until it reaches the approximate consistency of milk. Then slowly stir the mixture into your soup - don't just dump it, you want to make sure it's blended evenly because it came from a powder.

If none of these are options, then water will work but...yuck. Anyhow, make sure the microwave is set to a lower power before you cook a cream-based soup. Microwaves work by accelerating the water molecules in food and you're also doing this to the cream, so if you heat it too fast and too long, you'll get a thicker, nasty mess. You could theoretically offset this by adding more water but that'll ruin the flavor any way you handle it. Cream-based soups just aren't meant for microwaves, no matter how they're marketed.

If you bring soup again, try a soup made with tomato or beef stock. They're much more microwave friendly and rarely require outside ingredients (besides salt).

This is great with cheese. I often use C.O.M. soup in tuna recipes.

Easy 15 min dish.
C.O.M. soup, 1 can tuna, brocolli, shredded american cheese, elbow noodles.

Have you tried eating this with cheese and broccoli? I've also found that bratwurst goes well with it, too. Try marinating the bratwurst in the soup and cheese and broccoli in a microwave for about three minutes. It won't look the best, but it tastes pretty good.

I guarantee it.