Categories: Soups

24 Jan 2012, Comments (0)

Campbell’s Select Harvest Chicken with Whole Grain Pasta Soup

Author: Healthnuttxo

What do cold wintry days bring? Multiple trips to Starbucks and hot bowls of soup. Well at least for me. The weather was beyond bitter cold and windy the other day, and I thought the only thing to help my winter woe’s was to have a nice hot bowl of soup.  In the mood for something new, I tried, Campbell’s Select Harvest Chicken with Whole Grain Pasta Soup that I bought and was chilling in my pantry.

The ingredients weren’t bad, pretty good in fact. Take a look =)

So I cooked up the soup, noticing there wasn’t much to it. I’d say it was 50 % broth, and 50% content, mostly noodles with a few carrots and maybe 1-2 pieces of celery. I transferred to a bowl, but left some of the broth in the pot which is why it looks fuller.

I took a spoonful of the broth- oh. Where’s the salt?

Looking at the ingredients I noticed it was made with “lower sodium natural sea salt”, and although I don’t know exactly what that is, I assumed the lack of salty flavor was because that was used. But there really was a difference- I’m used to the salty soups!

I tried the chicken first, big cubes of it. It was chewy, yet soft, and again, not too salty tasting. It was pretty good, yet standard.

Next up, the noodles, and a LOT of them. They were whole grain, so that was good, and not mushy at all, also a plus. They kept well in the broth,and were a teeny bit softer than al dente. However, they were really bland.

The veggies were scarce, but good. Soft carrots and tender celery- I wish there was more so it would have “bulked” up the soup a little bit.

Overall, it was kind of a bland soup. Boring, lackluster, and really not enjoyable for that matter. I like that it’s low in sodium but it still needs flavor! How about some extra garlic or onion powder? Something. I felt like I NEEDED crackers or a piece of bread with butter to eat this soup, and I was even tempted to add salt (I refrained…). I also wished there were more veggies, as the soup didn’t satisfy me and I was still hungry (insert handfuls of Ritz crackers here).

With that said, 2 stars. I won’t buy this again, unfortunately.

4 Nov 2011, Comments (2)

Wolfgang Puck Organic Chicken and Dumplings Soup

Author: Healthnuttxo

Another soup review! NOT to be confused with my last review of this delicious soup, but I decided to buy this Wolfgang Puck Chicken and Dumplings soup in hopes it would be similar to this one!

So, the other day I came home from the gym and was HUNGRY. You know- when your hungry and pretty much you’d eat anything, and what you do eat, usually tastes so good. Even spinach would taste good. OK…that may be exaggerating, given the fact I hate spinach (I know….shame on health nut!), but you know what I’m talking about  ; )

SO ANYWAY, I decided to try out this new soup as part of my lunch. Here’s what it looked like transferred to a bowl…

THIS is supposed to fill me up....?

Here’s the soup, I tried to find some of the actual
contents of the soup (there was not a lot..it was mostly broth)

The “square” could have been a dumpling or a potato piece. They both looked the same.

So, as you can see…mostly broth, a few carrots, a few potato pieces, a few square dumplings(weird) and a few pieces of chicken. This was not a filling soup. You can guarantee it I had something else to eat after this soup. I considered it my appetizer.

Starting with the broth, it was sort of thin but also had a bit of an oily consistency I didn’t like.  The chicken was horrible. It was soooooo chewy, like the bottom stalk of an asparagus. Chew. Chew. Chew. The carrots and the potatoes were mushy. Like the second I put it in my mouth it turned to mush. Not my kinda vegetable consistency. And, the dumplings were basically bland noodles. I thought they were potatoes at first. Then I realized they were dumplings. ???

Overall, waste of money. I also felt like it was underseasoned and needed some salt. I was really disappointed with this soup. 1 1/2 stars   *SIGH* : (

2 Nov 2011, Comments (3)

Imagine Organic Chicken Pot Pie Soup

Author: Healthnuttxo

On the list of my favorite foods, is definitely pot pie. Vegetable and Chicken Pot Pie are my favorites.  A flaky, buttery crust, a thick rue, with tender veggies and/or cubes of yummy chicken. Comfort food doesn’t get much better than that! So when I saw this Imagine Organic Chicken Pot Pie Soup in the stores, I KNEW I had to buy it 🙂

So, the past rainy night, I decided soup and crackers were the ideal meal. I opened up this can, and poured it, well ATTEMPTED to pour it out into the pot. It was so thick that I could literally turn it upside down and it didn’t move. That’s how you know a soup was going to be creamy! (and full of delicious fat….just saying ; ) )

As I cooked it, I noticed lumps of dough (taking place of the crust I assume??), tiny carrots, peas and pieces of chicken. Here’s what it looked like cooked.

And a close up of the “dough blobs”…

Keeping it classy with plastic spoon…. ; )

This soup, as predicted, was CREAMY! The “broth” of the soup reminded me of the creamy rou in pot pie. So good! The dough blobs threw me off a little bit. They basically tasted like giant noodles. They were soft and chewy, but otherwise rather flavorless, which kind of like noodles are. Flavorless until seasoned.

The peas and carrots were sparse in this soup – a few carrots, a couple peas here and there. And the chicken was good, but kind of fell apart.

However, I really did enjoy this soup! It was more like chicken dumping soup rather than pot pie soup, but it was still good. And hey, who complains when they dumplings? Not me, that’s for sure ; )

Overall, 4 stars. I would like it if they did something else for the “crust” of a pot pie rather than the huge blobs of noodles, but this was still a good soup. I would buy it again, and I liked it didn’t taste so salty that I had to drink water. We all know that drinking water while eating soup = getting full really fast. Getting “full” really fast means not eating enough for the meal, and then being annoyingly hungry an hour or so later. UGH!!!

What’s your FAVORITE way to eat pot pie? Crust first, mush the crust in with the veggies/rou, or crust last? I like to eat the crust last, it’s the best part!


2 Sep 2011, Comments (4)

Amy’s Kitchen Thai Coconut Soup

Author: Healthnuttxo

It’s a sad day for me in Amy’s Kitchen world.

First off, you guys should (hopefully!!) know by now how much of a fan I am of Amy’s meals. I love a lot of the entrees, and never had a problem with any of them in the past. In fact, I continue to eat Amy’s Kitchen meals (despite the hefty 5-6$ price each!) on a daily basis.

So, to try something new, I picked up the Amy’s Kitchen Thai Coconut Soup. If it was anything like the Thai Stir Fry Meal (one of my FAVORITES!) I was sure I was going to like it. So I opened the can and poured it into a pot. I was really taken aback. Why was this so thin? I thought. From the front of the can, I was sure it was going to be thick and creamy. Instead, it was almost like a thin broth, with a few vegetables scattered. Here’s what it looked like after it was done cooking.

Wait…RED-ORANGE? Why wasn’t it white like the can?

Whatever, I thought, pictures on the front never really look like how the product actually looks like anyway.

So I took a spoonful, excited to try. I was hoping for a creamy and rich tasting soup with coconut flavor. However….it really wasn’t like that at all. Like I said, there were very few veggies. In fact, here’s the size of the pot I used

And here’s the amount of veggies in the soup after I poured out the broth.

Yea….

So not much veggie action going on there. Or, veggie and tofu action. But, even with the vegetables that were there, I was diasppointed. The carrots were very mushy, green beans kind of the same, the tofu was alright but bland, and the random leaves- I think they were bay leafs?, I threw (ahem, recycled) the can before I wrote this up so I forgot to check the ingredients. Regardless, I wasn’t a fan of the veggies : (

I wasn’t really a fan of the flavor of this soup either. Like I said it was very thin, with almost a tomatoey flavor. There also was an awkward spice to it, that reminded me of cayenne pepper. I didn’t get to finish this soup, so I heated up a delicious meal I knew I would love – Amy’s Enchiladas in the microwave. Good thing for back up! =)

Overall, 1 1/2 stars. I really didn’t enjoy this, but if you tried this, I’d LOVE to know your thoughts!

Question- what’s your favorite thing involving coconut? Mine is definitely Amy’s Kitchen Thai Stir Fry, which I’m pretty sure is made with coconut milk!! =)

19 Nov 2010, Comments (0)

Kettle Cuisine New England Clam Chowder Soup

Author: Healthnuttxo

Dont forget this TOTALLY AWESOME Giveaway ends tomorow!

Source

What better than soup on a cold, windy day? That’s all I was craving one night last week. It was cold, windy, and I just wanted something warm and soothing!

So, I popped this bowl of soup in the microwave, grabbed a side of vegetables, and had a light meal. It smelled delicious coming out of the microwave, and looked awesome. Creamy, thick, and just “mmmm”.

I sat down after giving it a quick stir and scooped some up on my spoon. The only thing I thought was, “WHY haven’t I eaten clam chowder in a while!? It’s DELICIOUS!!!”

It had a cream based taste, slightly salty but not too bad. The clams were kind of chewy, but I always think clams are chewy, so I guess I would say that they were a typical clam texture for me : ) . The bits of potatoes soft and fluffy, and overall a great soup.

A few things, however, I did NOT like. One of them (the major one) was that this soup has 18 grams of fat, with TEN of it saturated, and .5 TRANS fat! While I did look at the ingredients and did not see any partially hydrogenated or fully hydrogenated oils, I will assume this is naturally occuring trans fat. Naturally occuring or not, not my favorite type of fat to eat.

The second thing I didn’t like was that every now and then there was this gritty kind of texture. Kind of like when I go to the beach and have a sandwich and some of the sand inevitably ended up in the sandwich and you bite down and it has that sort of “gritty” texture. It wasn’t too bad, but as I was eating I noticed it a few times.

On the positive side, the taste was awesome, nutritional facts were OK, but it was actually quite satisfying, and kept me full with 15 grams of protein per serving. This is also GLUTEN FREE! Overall, 4 stars.

1 bowl is 330 calories, 18 grams of fat, 800 mg of sodium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 6 grams of sugar, and 15 grams of protein.

15 Jun 2010, Comments (0)

Pacific Natural Foods Organic Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup

Author: Healthnuttxo

Yes, I’m aware it’s June. And yes, it was rather humid and hot today. But, yes, I still had soup!

And a delicious soup at that. Pacific Natural Foods sent me some of their soups to try, in really cool flavors like this one. Organic Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup- how yummy does that sound! This soup is also all natural, gluten free, and organic.

So, I heated up this soup and shared some with my parents. At first, I didn’t really know what to expect- I mean, I’m not really a tomato soup girl. I was  always more of a vegetable or noodle based soup- something with something  in it to chew. But I’m glad I tried this one- it was actually quite good! 

I poured it in the bowl and noticed it looked like a nice, creamy soup. Not your typical watered down soup in a can. Then I tasted a spoonful once it was heated up- uh… YUM!! Totally not what I expected!  It had a very surprising buttery and cheesy taste to it- absolutely delicious! No overpowering tomato or red pepper taste- but just a very enjoyable and flavorful soup. My parents also enjoyed this soup, and when my dad commented that it wasn’t too salty, I was shocked to see there were 720 milligrams of sodium per serving! I would have never guessed!

Overall, this soup gets 4 1/2 stars. The flavor really rocks and I think it would be great alongside a grilled cheese or even some crackers. I was surprised I liked it as much as I did, including I never really was a tomato soup kinda girl. I reccommend this soup, and I also liked that it didn’t come in a can, but a recloseable carton that had 4 servings in it. You could heat some up, and refrigerate the unused portion, and then go back for more later!  🙂

1 serving (1 cup) is 110 calories, 2 grams of fat, 16 carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 12 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein. It also provides 15% of your daily needs of calcium. Woo hoo!

Organic reduced fat milk, Filtered water, Organic tomato paste, Organic caramelized red pepper flavor (organic red peppers, sea salt, organic butter), Organic evaporated cane juice, Organic roasted garlic, Organic roasted red peppers, Sea salt, Sodium citrate, Organic rice flour, Organic garlic powder, Organic onion powder, Organic spices.

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