With my trip coming up soon, I have shifted into making up some meals to take along with me which may be pre-made by myself, or something combined with store bought materials.

Most recently, I started to look into the possibility of a biscuits and sausage gravy breakfast meal, utilizing freeze dried sausage crumbles and whole powdered milk.

The problem I came up with, was the biscuit. The dough itself, is not an issue I was too concerned about. I can easily premix my own ingredients, and then add the water later on. No, the problem was how was I going to cook the biscuits.

The more I thought about it, the more it tugged at me. I needed an easier way to do this, so I decided to try out a cheap analog, and to much of my surprise, it worked out wonderful.

First off, I purchased myself a box of Lipton Soup Secrets Chicken Noodle Soup.

This is a pre-packaged, freeze dried soup that has  white chicken pieces, noodles, and powdered chicken broth. A single box has 2 packets, each packet is to make 3 cups of soup. A cost for the box of soup can be anywhere from 80 cents to a couple bucks, depending on where you buy it. Amazon has it in cases of 24, for around $34 (including free shipping).

The process of making the soup is easy. Just mix in the soup packet with 3 cups of water, bring to a boil, let simmer, and done.

The second item I purchased is Jiffy Buttermilk Biscuit Mix.

This is another pre-mix item. Just add half a cup of water, mix, and you are ready for baking. Average cost of this is between 50 to 70 cents. Again, can be found on Amazon in case’s of 24 for around $22.

As with all of my experiments for the trip, I have continued to use my cooking set. Opting to not use the cooking stove tonight, I instead used the cooking range to stay indoors. What matters most is to make sure it all fit in my cooking pot fine.

Difficulty of this recipe is a 1. If you can boil water, you can make this.
Water Needed: 28 oz. (3.5 cups)
Total Cook Time: About 15 minutes
Serving Size: I’m going to go with 3. I was stuffed eating half and that’s saying a lot.
Cost Per Serving: Less than a buck

In your cooking pot, mix the soup and 24 oz of water, while stirring to get the chicken broth to dissolve.

Put pot on stove to bring to boil.

In either a separate mixing bag, or bowl while waiting for the chicken soup to come to a boil, mix the Jiffy Biscuit Mix and 4 oz of water. Mix until completely mixed well.

Once chicken soup comes to a boil, turn down to a simmer.

Roll clumps of dough into ping pong ball sized clumps, and drop into the soup mixture.

Cover and let simmer for 10 more minutes.

Remove from stove, salt and pepper to taste, and enjoy.

Some additional thoughts on this.  For a stronger soup flavor, use 16 oz. of water.

Repackage the Jiffy before your trip. Cut it in half by weight in separate containers (or put it all in one big container and measure it out). A full box seems to be a bit over kill for a single person. Especially if you go the 16 oz. of water for the soup.

For a single serving, purchase Lipton Cup-a-Soup. These box’s of dried soup have 4 single serving pouches. All it takes is 6 oz of water. By experimenting with the amount of water and Jiffy needed. One could easily make a single serving in a stove safe mug.