So when I was single and pre-kids, I used to make this soup that always went over really well. It was in my early, "experimental" days and thus is based on pre-made food. But it was always a bit hit with soup eaters. Basically, it's jazzing up Campbell's:

1 can of cream of shrimp

1 can of clam chowder

1 can of lobster bisque

1 can of cream of potato

pat of butter
ground nutmeg

cracked pepper

that's pretty much it.

So, the other day I was in the grocery store and I'm thinking "wow, I haven't made that soup in a long time... it's winter; what the hay"

So I'm standing there, in the soup aisle. If Campbell's still makes lobster bisque, I didn't see it, only the really expensive brands of lobster bisque. Well J wasn't eating with us that night and the boys dont' exactly have gourmet tastes to warrent buying expensive stuff so I skip the lobster bisque and get everything else. Follow directions on the can and make us some soup. The only "issue" I had with the soup was the fact that it didn't have much in the way of protein. So I reached into the freezer and grabbed my ever-present bag of frozen sausage links. Microwaved those babies just long enough to thaw them and chopped them up. Voila, hearty soup. Looking around the fridge, I discovered some shitake mushrooms I bought the other day but didn't use. Excellent. Slice them up and throw them into a frying pan. With some onion powder and a lil bit of butter. Once the mushrooms were a bit limp, I threw the sausage in with them to heat them up and consolidate the flavor. Using a rubber spatula, I scrape the whole sausage and mushroom coterie into the pot of soup. Voila, flavorful soup.

Seeing as dinner was such an easy affair, I decide to make something else I hadn't for a while: sesame noodles. Sesame noodles is a big favorite snack food of second son; it basically kept him alive when I gave birth to third son and his father was apparently glued to cable TV (I know this because when I finally got home, I discovered the remnants of sesame noodles all over the apartment but after having had a 12" opening in my abdomen that was healing, I didn't have the wherewithal to clean up all the noodles for a while)
Anyway, making sesame noodles is easy; it's not even a recipe. You boil somen noodles according to the package directions, then drain and cool them, then use salt and toasted sesame oil on them. The "trick" to it is the ingrediants: you HAVE to use SOMEN noodles (found in the "ethnic" section of the grocery store) and you HAVE to use Kadoya toasted sesame oil (also in "ethnic" food section). Other noodles just won't taste the same. Kadoya makes a dark rich toasted sesame oil that no other brand can match. You pour just enough oil over the noodles to coat them, add salt to taste and put it in the fridge. They are delicious. NOt only delicious, but it's a taste that creeps up on you. Your first bite you'll be thinking "what in hell is she talking about? This hardly tastes like anything!" but take a few more bites.... I guarantee you'll get addicted (or you'll hate them)

So, we had soup and noodles for that dinner.

Well, next night, I'm making dinner again and I'm not really wanting to go to the grocery store, so I look in the fridge to see what I can throw together with the chicken I've already thawed out. Well, hey, looka that: there's still some soup left and the noodles have barely been touched.
Hmm....
So I cut up the chicken breasts, fry them up in a little oil, toss in some thyme and salt until just barely cooked. Then I throw in 3/4 of the leftover soup and let it simmer. With the other 1/4 of the soup, I added about three tablespoons (half a handful) of flour and mixed it well. This is what we call "base". Cook it a little bit and it's called "roux". I stirred the base into the chicken mess and simmer until thickened. Voila, chicken... uh... "creamy stuff"
Served over sesame noodles - excellent stuff.