Do you have a lot of leftover celery from the holidays? It's sort of a silly question but I had 3 bunches of it for some reason in my refrigerator. You can make cream of celery soup out of it and use it all year long. It works just as good as using cream of mushroom soup in casseroles and is much cheaper to make instead of buying the cans. Here is my recipe. You will need a very large stockpot.
2 cups butter (4 sticks)
2 cups flour
8 cups milk
8 cups water
2 cups celery
3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/8 cup salt
2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp paprika
Melt butter over medium heat. Stir in flour till it thickens. Slowly stir in milk and water. Cook until mixture thickens stirring constantly. Add remaining ingredients and simmer another 5 minutes. Cool completely. Freeze 2 cups of soup on 1 quart freezer bags. Makes 8 servings.
