Favorite food for cold weather

Van Living Forum

Help Support Van Living Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
The snow is finally melted and it's been raining all day now. So I turned to another favorite of mine. Chicken Ala King on Biscuits. (you can use this on cooked rice, noodles, English Muffins, or whatever)

Fast and simple:

1 TB butter/margarine
2 tb diced pimentos
1 can mushroom soup (or cream of chicken if you don't like mushrooms)
1 8 oz canned diced chicken breast
1/3 Cup Milk
1/2 Cup frozen/thawed peas
Salt/Pepper & others seasonings to taste. (seasoning salt if it's all ya got)

Melt the butter and add the pimentos to saute for 2 minutes
Then add the condensed soup, milk, chicken, seasoning, and peas to bring
to a near boil and reduce the heat to simmer for about 20 minutes.
Allow to cool to just warm before serving.

I've even torn up hotdog or hamburger buns to ladle this over.

H3HRliDrVkm7vPhHhJxt2Q_gmi_hi_res_jpeg.jpeg
 
The snow is finally melted and it's been raining all day now. So I turned to another favorite of mine. Chicken Ala King on Biscuits. (you can use this on cooked rice, noodles, English Muffins, or whatever)

Fast and simple:

1 TB butter/margarine
2 tb diced pimentos
1 can mushroom soup (or cream of chicken if you don't like mushrooms)
1 8 oz canned diced chicken breast
1/3 Cup Milk
1/2 Cup frozen/thawed peas
Salt/Pepper & others seasonings to taste. (seasoning salt if it's all ya got)

Melt the butter and add the pimentos to saute for 2 minutes
Then add the condensed soup, milk, chicken, seasoning, and peas to bring
to a near boil and reduce the heat to simmer for about 20 minutes.
Allow to cool to just warm before serving.

I've even torn up hotdog or hamburger buns to ladle this over.
I forgot all about that recipe. Think I made it once when I was a teenager. Sounds kinda good:) Wonder where the name came from.
 
I hadn't thought about it's origins but found this:

Another account claims chef George Greenwald of the Brighton Beach Hotel in Brighton Beach created it in 1898, naming it after patron E. Clarke King II and his wife. Another account is that chicken à la King was created in the 1890s by hotel cook William "Bill" King of the Bellevue Hotel in Philadelphia.

The next pot of it that I make, I'll use cream of chicken soup as I have a bunch of cans of it that need to be used. And I'll use Italian Seasoning as it contains most of the stuff that goes really well with chicken.

This thickens as it cools so it is better to plate it when it is just warm. It may be even better to make it before bed time and place the cover on the pot and allow it to sit until brunch or later the next day so the flavors have time to blend together.
 
Last edited:
Grilled cheese variations...

Having stumbled across a Welsh Rarebit (rabbit) recipe long ago, I tried the simple bachelor version, a grilled cheese with mustard and pepper. Very good. Its the primary way I eat grilled cheese now, made with sharp cheddar and whole wheat bread.

Ketchup on grilled cheese isnt bad either.

When I slept out a lot Id often get pasta for dinner, it helped fuel the furnace inside to stay warmer. Pizza Hut used to have some good pasta dishes in the 80s.
 
My fallback--from backpacking in chilly times--is packets of dry mashed potatoes. Hot water + dry milk + spices + meat a/o cheese and mix to the thickness you like, soup or just mashed? Lightweight and sticks to your ribs...or if thick enough, almost anything else. I still use it in winter by just getting bulk dried potato and mixing dry milk, chives, garlic and salt and keeping it in a quart jar in the cupboard. If I brew tea it warms me, but five minutes later I need to peapy. Just drop a couple of Tblsp's of this in a cup of hot water and I can continue working on whatever useless, time-wasting project my ADD latches on. (generally poetry or philosophy. is there anything more useless to the world than being a poet and philosopher?)
(okay. i hear ya. politician...et cetera. don't yell.)
 
Grilled cheese variations
Very thin sliced apple with really good cheddar
Very thin turkey or ham or chicken deli meat with Goda cheese
cooked bacon and very thin sliced tomato with Jack cheese
Salami and mozzarella cheese and a bit of parmesan cheese sprinkled on
Thin sliced fresh pears and some really good cheddar & jack cheese, maybe pepper jack.
Hubby likes roast beef and cheedar
Son likes super thin sliced red or sweet onions with his meats.
Breads
whole wheat - sourdough - white - french bread or something sweet with fruits and cheese.
I've always liked a very very thin slice of white or red onion on my grilled cheese...
Real mayo inside, butter or spray-on margarine for the outside before grilling. :)
 
Honestly, after all the responses here I wish I liked tomato soup.

I suppose I can just double up on the grilled cheese too make up for it.
 
Honestly, after all the responses here I wish I liked tomato soup.

I suppose I can just double up on the grilled cheese too make up for it.
Also like enchilada cheese soup or broccoli cheese...both Progresso.
 
Honestly, after all the responses here I wish I liked tomato soup.

I suppose I can just double up on the grilled cheese too make up for it.
Have you tried different kinds of tomato soups? There is a huge difference between the canned ketchup like canned Campbell's tomato soup and the quart-size fresh packed tomato bisque you see in the cold fresh food section at Walmart...

When I say huge difference I don't mean that they have different flavors, but rather that you can't tell that they are supposed to be made with the same ingredients they are so different from one another...
 
I love really good tomato and basil soup. I could have this stuff by the gallon. And at an airport once had tomato and roasted red pepper soup, so yummy!
I had a chef come out and grrr at me once. His tomato soup was supper good, but I didn't want his turkey sandwich that was on the menu with it and asked if it would be ok to have grilled cheese instead waitress said yes but the chef came out and growled at me. I then told him how good his made from scratch soup was and I'm sure his sandwich was good, but I grew up on grilled cheese when eating tomato soup. Just was what it was. He still frowned but told him again after eating all of it that it really was very good soup.
Hubby had french dip 'cause he just does whenever possible, his sandwich was made with real good roast beef and good homemade french bread and scratch made Ajus stuff. Just a funky little place in a tiny town somewhere in Eastern WA. I think. I love places like that.
 
I have made a really delicious but simple tomato basil soup from scratch, that used canned tomatoes and you took an immersion blender to it at the end.

You wouldn’t even have to blend it if you didn’t mind the chunks.

I’ll see if I can find the recipe.

This looks similar to the one I have at home, where I am not currently. 😅

https://www.theseasonedmom.com/tomato-basil-soup/
 
Last edited:
Ok so now on to soups. I love tomato soup though it doesn't always love me back. I love a good chicken soup and firmly believe it fights the common cold very well. Clam chowder with or without clams. Son can't eat shellfish and neighbor doesn't like seafood at all so sometimes it is Salmon chowder or potato soup. Hubby likes a good beef stew type soup. And as a preschool teacher a good stone soup is always fun and yummy. And yes I use real stones.
 
I have made a really delicious but simple tomato basil soup from scratch, that used canned tomatoes and you took an immersion blender to it at the end.

You wouldn’t even have to blend it if you didn’t mind the chunks.

I’ll see if I can find the recipe.

This looks similar to the one I have at home, where I am not currently. 😅

https://www.theseasonedmom.com/tomato-basil-soup/
I think the blender is mostly used for recipes where you don't use peeled tomatoes...

I'm still unsure which version of sauces/soups I prefer... Blended skins or peeled tomatoes...
 
Clam chowder with or without clams
I grew up eating clams. Clams have always been one of my favorite sea foods. Then, eating clam chowder one day, I broke out in massive itchy hives all over my back. Kind of panicked. Turns out I developed a mild to moderate clam allergy (just clams oddly enough, not mussels, conch, et-al). Got and carried an epi-pen for a while but now I just make sure that I stop and get a bottle of Benadryl or other antihistamine allergy medicine before going in to eat clams. I usually take a shot of the Benadryl before eating and sometimes one afterwards if needed. Fortunately the allergy doesn't seem to be getting worse.
 
I went to the grocery store in Quartzsite today and found that meat prices had dropped. So pork chops and a chub of hamburger went into my grocery cart. Chili is back on this week’s menu!! Which is good because the back to back storms out of California have brought some cooler weather with them.
 

Latest posts

Top