I don’t want to embarrass anyone, but SOMEONE in our household is the first baby of my five babies to suffer from constipation. I’ll say no more about that, except that luckily the child in question is still eating anything fed to him on a spoon, so I can easily get him to eat prunes. Not that that’s helping all that much, but onward to the story, which is that after spending a dollar for two tiny containers of Gerber prunes, I noticed the ingredients:

So not only is this a very simple recipe, but there is MORE WATER THAN PRUNES. At 50 cents per 2.5-ounce container, that is DISPLEASING. (For comparison, at that same price per ounce a standard jar of applesauce would cost over nine dollars.)

But I’ve never made my own prune baby food, and prunes seemed kind of TOUGH to put in the blender. Undaunted, I called out an old trick from my bakery days: to revive tough raisins and keep them moist in bakedy stuff, put them in a big bowl and soak them in boiling water for awhile.

I put the prunes in a pan.

 

I poured boiling water over them.

 

I let them soak. Oh, gross.

 

After an hour or so, I poured the water off into the blender, leaving the prunes in the pan.

 

I pressed the prunes with a fork, looking for pits. They were supposed to be pitted, but I don’t totally trust that.

 

And sure enough. A pit. This is one of THREE I found. (That’s not typical.)

 

I added the slightly squished prunes to the prune water in the blender.

 

I cranked it up to eleven. (Actually: four.)

 

Well, darn it. I used too much water. It’s like soup. I’m not willing to do the whole soak routine again, so I just added regular non-soaked prunes this time, squeezing each one lightly to check for pits (found one more).

 

Well, darn it. Now it’s too thick. Sigh. Adding water.

 

I poured it out into ice cube trays.

 

This is how many it made.

 

Ice cube trays into freezer.

 

That evening, I ran hot water over the bottom of each tray…

 

…and then cracked the cubes out onto a paper towel.

 

Then the cubes go into a plastic ziploc freezer bag.

 

When you want to make some for the baby, put a couple of cubes into a little container (I use the Ziploc 1-cup) and let them thaw in the refrigerator.

 

Or if you forgot to let them thaw ahead of time, or didn’t know ahead of time that you’d need them: 30 seconds in the microwave. Your microwave may vary.

 

Voila: delicious prune puree. For a baby whose name need not be mentioned.

It has come to my attention that there are some in our midst who have never had Oatmeal Scotchies. I think the important thing here is NOT TO PANIC. Please form an orderly line and walk–don’t run, don’t take anything with you–to the Quaker Oats site, and then to the grocery store to procure ingredients. We will have you fixed up in no time. EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY.

And here is the recipe itself, in case you are from the future, rooting through mankind’s archives in a radiation-proof vault, posts preserved but links destroyed in our hurry to escape impending alien overlords:

Oatmeal Scotchies

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1-1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups oats (quick or old fashioned, uncooked)
1 package (11 oz.) butterscotch flavored chips

Heat oven to 375 degrees F. In large bowl, beat butter and sugars until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Add combined flour, baking soda and salt; mix well. Add oats and butterscotch morsels; mix well. Drop dough by level tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 7 to 8 minutes for a chewy cookie or 9 to 10 minutes for a crisp cookie. Cool 2 minutes on cookie sheets; remove to wire rack. Cool completely. Store tightly covered.

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I made a couple of changes: I removed the “margarine” option from the butter line, and I removed the word “optional” from the salt line. Obviously you may use margarine and leave out the salt, but there will be an awkward silence when you tell me about it.

Also, some of you said that your chocolate chip cookies don’t look like the ones in yesterday’s photo, shown here again:

Well, the first step in diagnosing the problem is to make sure you’re using my recipe, which is basically straight off the back of the bag, and which I have posted before as Postpartum Chocolate-Chip Cookies:

1 cup (1 stick) Crisco
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2-1/4 cups flour
1 bag (12 oz) chocolate chips

Cream Crisco and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla. Add baking soda, salt, and flour. Add chocolate chips. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet, 375 degrees F, 9-10 minutes.

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Notice that one of the intensely awesome elements of this recipe is that if you use a Crisco stick (and what do you mean, you don’t use Crisco sticks?), you can do all the measuring with a single measuring cup (three of the 3/4 cup used for the sugar is the 2-1/4 cups flour) and a single measuring spoon (dry it off after measuring the vanilla). You don’t have a 3/4 cup? Oh, honey. They’re made by Tupperware, and they also have a 2/3 cup. The set is crazy expensive, but I use those two measurements so often, it’s totally worth it. I like the older-style ones (I don’t like the swoopy handles on the newer ones) so I bought mine used on evilBay. If you’re not picky about color and you find reasonable shipping, you can find a set for cheaper than new.

Where were we? Oh, yes: you were writing “Tupperware measuring cups” on your Christmas list.

And then you were making a batch of cookies. Maybe two batches.

Here it is, finally! The cookie recipe I tried as brownies but said would need more tweaking before they’d be perfect. Now they’re perfect. I used Andes Creme de Menthe baking chips instead of mint chocolate chips, since as we discovered, mint chocolate chips are only available seasonally. Even the Andes chips aren’t available at my grocery store, but I can find them at Wal*hate*mart.

Swistle’s Perfect Chocolate Mint Brownies
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour
1 and 1/2 cups Andes Creme de Menthe baking chips

Cream butter and sugar. Add cocoa powder. Add egg, water, and vanilla. Add salt and flour. Add baking chips. Bake in a lightly buttered 8×8 pan, 325 degrees for 38-39 minutes. TRY to let them cool before eating them, because they really are much much yummier that way. You’d think they’d be better all warm and melty, but I have lots of experience in this area and I think you should trust me. Okay, fine, have one warm brownie. But then hands off until they’re cool!

Do you know how many batches of brownies I made before settling on this recipe? Neither do I. But I tried it with baking soda and with baking powder, with no water and 1 tablespoon water and 2 tablespoons water, with 1/2 cup of butter and with 2/3 cup of butter, with the whole bag of Andes chips and with 1 and 1/4 cups and with 1 and 1/3 cups, with the pan greased and not greased.

All of them were good, so don’t be nervous to try other variations. I like having a partial bag of the baking chips left over to nibble on, but it was also good when I dumped in the whole bag.

Now, COOKIES take quite awhile to make, with all the cycling of hot pans and forming of little lumps of dough. But BROWNIES, you can find time for more easily, which is why I modified this recipe just for you, kiss kiss! I timed it and these took me 15 minutes from “putting mixer on counter” until “putting pan in oven.” And that included having to microwave the butter because I forgot to put some out to soften, and having to run downstairs to the storage shelves for a bag of flour.

In addition to the Bad Sleep phase I mentioned earlier this week, Elizabeth is also going through a Hitting People In The Face stage. Fortunately for her, she is ALSO-also going through a Pink Cowgirl Boot phase.

Today I tried making the Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies as brownies. Cookies involve a lot of cycling pans in and out of the oven, not to mention a lot of manufacturing of little lumps of dough that keep accidentally detouring to the mouth. So I dumped the whole batch of dough into a greased square brownie pan and cooked it for 38 minutes at 325 degrees F, and let’s just say the whole pan of them is gone already. I need to tinker with the recipe (it should be moister), but there is potential here for greatness.

Third day of Week Three. I couldn’t finish the second 3-minute jogging segment: after 2 minutes I’d stopped thinking I was going to die and started hoping. I think this means I’ll repeat Week Three next week, since this time it isn’t just “I don’t see how I can possibly do more,” it’s “I didn’t successfully complete this week’s assignment and need an extension.”

By the way, I have a genius idea to share. I’ve been struggling with the timing of these jog-walks, since I have to do it when Paul is home–which is when the weather is hottest and the traffic near our house is bad. That is not the genius idea. THIS is the genius idea: this morning when it was cooler, Rob and William and I did laps around our house. I put the twins in their playpen, and Henry was napping. Every time we were in one of the walking segments, either Rob or William walked inside to check on the babies. Also, I had the baby monitor clipped to my waistband–though I realized after we came in that since the other end of the monitor was in Elizabeth’s bedroom, it wasn’t doing me much good monitoring the twins in the living room.

Regardless of the genius factor (and the word “genius” sticks in the throat after relating that little tidbit about thinking the baby monitor would magically monitor the babies wherever they were), it is utterly discouraging to do laps around your house. Well, around my house, anyway–maybe your house is exciting to run laps around. Mine made me feel like a hamster in a wheel, only less fun than that. More like running around and around a house for no reason.

I promised–promised–I would post this Peppermint Brownies recipe to help ease El-e-e‘s chocolate mint pregnancy craving, and WHERE THE HELL HAS IT BEEN? Lolling indolently in my recipe box, too fat to move, that’s where.

Peppermint Brownies
24 small (1.5-inch) peppermint patties (13 oz bag)
1.5 cups (3 sticks) butter, melted
3 cups sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
5 eggs
2 cups flour
1 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

My god, can you believe those ingredients? Don’t think about it. Just avert your eyes as you preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and grease a 9×13 pan. Ha ha, this recipe actually clarifies that you should remove the wrappers from the peppermint patties! Yes, go ahead and do that so you don’t FORGET and put them in WRAPPED.

Mix together the melted (unwrapped!) butter, the sugar, and the vanilla. Add eggs and mix until well-blended. Add salt, baking powder, cocoa, and flour; blend well (and CAREFULLY, remembering that cocoa powder wants nothing more than to live on your walls and ceiling).

Put 2 cups of batter in a bowl and set aside. Put remaining batter evenly in pan. Arrange patties in a 4×6 pattern over batter (not touching the pan) and press down so that tops of patties are roughly level with batter. Spread reserved 2 cups of batter over top.

Bake 50-55 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from sides of pan. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Top with Peppermint Frosting if your heart can take it.

Peppermint Frosting
4 tablespoons butter, softened
generous 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
generous dash salt
2 and 2/3 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons milk (little more if necessary)

(The weird measurements are because I got this from another recipe which was for an 8×8 baked item, so I increased the quantities but they didn’t come out nice and even.)

Cream butter, peppermint extract, and salt. Gradually add half the powdered sugar, creaming until light. Add remaining sugar, and the milk. Beat until smooth.

El-e-e has brought to my attention a Serious Situation regarding the Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies recipe I posted the other day: mint chocolate chips are only available seasonally, and this is not the season.

It’s true that I bought mine during the Christmas season. I bought many bags, because I was so enchanted by their existence. In fact, I had six bags, and what do you mean, “Why the past tense?”

So many bags on hand is why I had not yet noticed that none of you would be able to make the recipe unless your grocery stores were of a particularly exemplary sort; if I had known, I would not have teased you so cruelly.

Okay! Okay! Let’s all remain calm. Luckily, LoriD has solved the problem: she added 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint extract (make sure you get peppermint, not mint) and used regular chocolate chips. You may want to adjust the chocolate chip quantity: the mint chocolate kind are 1 and 2/3 cup bags, the regular chocolate kind are 2 cup bags, and I thought it was best with more like 1 and 1/4 cups.

LoriD also tried Crisco instead of butter. I tried it myself, and I think the butter is significantly better-tasting in this recipe. I’m going to try the mint extract variation as soon as I get some more butter in the house.

Paul took Rob and William swimming yesterday, so I didn’t have my running partners. I went out on my own, and learned this: children make excellent shields. When I run with the children, I don’t worry that the neighbors are looking at me, because I am certain they are instead trying to figure out what we’re running away from so slowly. When I run with the children, people are too busy trying not to hit us with their cars to notice if my rear is, or is not, jogging more than I am. When I run with the children, I look like I’m participating reluctantly in some sort of Family Fitness Fun!! program, not like I think I am Getting Ripped. When I run with the children, the sound of questions (“What’s the difference between a cul de sac and a dead end?” “How many more seconds?” “Are you GLAD or NOT GLAD that we’re doing this?”) drowns out the sound of gasping and swearing.

Running still felt easier without them, though, perhaps because my heart rate was not already elevated from seeing a child jog aimlessly toward the center yellow line or carom off a mailbox. I’d planned to repeat week one, but as an experiment tried a week two session. Week one’s sixty seconds of jogging was a nearly insurmountable eternity of jogging, but ninety seconds turned out to be just as nearly insurmountable–and then there’s 2 minutes of breathing walking instead of 90 seconds, and that’s worth the additional suffering.

May I suggest my favorite post-run snack? Try half a batch of these babies and feel the suffering ease.

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies
2/3 cup butter (1 stick plus a scant 3 tablespoons), softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 cup flour
approx. 1 and 1/4 cups mint chocolate chips*

*OR: use regular chocolate chips and add 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract (make sure it’s peppermint, not mint) to the batter when adding the vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream butter and sugar; add egg and vanilla and mix well. Add baking soda and salt and mix well. Add cocoa powder and flour very carefully or you will have cocoa powder on more surfaces than you thought possible; cocoa powder is not bound by the laws of physics and I have found it coating the underside of the base of the mixer. Add mint chocolate chips. You can put in a full bag (which is about 1 and 2/3 cups), but I thought it was better with fewer (I know–I’m as surprised as anyone). Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 8-9 minutes; err on the side of underbaking, because they’ll set up more after they come out of the oven.

The first time I baked them, they almost didn’t change shape from the dough balls they started out as. The second time, I mixed them a little more thoroughly and made the dough balls a little smaller, and they flattened out like cookies. Both times they tasted excellent.

If you make this recipe, you will want to kiss me or curse me, but your mouth will be too crammed to do either one. These are like mint-chocolate-chip brownie cookies. Last night Paul went to bed early because he wanted to stop eating the cookies and couldn’t think of any other way.

Swistle’s Postpartum Chocolate-Chip Cookies
1/2 c. shortening (I use half a Crisco stick–easier)
1/2 c. butter, softened
3/4 c. dark brown sugar
3/4 c. sugar
1 t. vanilla
2 eggs
1 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
2 and 1/4 c. flour
12 oz bag chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Get out mixer. Notice how long it’s been since anyone has cleaned the mixer. Feel like a bad housekeeper. Feel oppressed by the millions and millions of messy things that ought to be cleaned. Dismiss thought; return attention to business at hand.

In mixer, thoroughly beat together Crisco, butter, and sugars. Remember the time brother’s friends found out cookies were made with Crisco, after they had already eaten several. Remember how they looked like they might throw up. Wonder why Crisco is so terrible. Rather not know.

Add vanilla and eggs. Accidentally pick up pointlessly-saved empty vanilla bottle first. Then accidentally pick up lemon extract bottle, also empty. Finally find actual vanilla.

Dry off teaspoon. Use it to add the baking soda and the salt.

See ant on counter near sugar bowl. Weep at ceaselessness of ants.

Add flour. Feel pleased for millionth time about being able to use the 3/4-cup measure from the sugars to measure the flour (three 3/4 cups = 2 and 1/4 cups), saving endless hours of dishwashing.

Add chocolate chips. Ignore the part about “by hand” and just grind them the hell through the mixer. They can take it.

Carefully form perfect dough bite: exactly the right proportion of chips to dough. Accidentally drop dough bite on floor. Weep.

Put lumps of dough onto cookie sheet. Feel angry at husband for never washing it thoroughly so pan is ugly and gross with baked-on stuff. Consider leaving him for someone who would care about cookie sheet cleanliness.

Eat three more bites of dough.

Put cookies in oven. Wonder where timer is. Glance at clock on oven, in case it takes a long time to find timer. Oven says it is 3:75, cookies need to bake for 10 minutes, so cookies will be done at 3:85. Search for timer for a couple more minutes before realizing 375 is not the time.

Find timer. Set for what is probably how long they still need to be in there.

Baby cries. Start nursing baby, forgetting about cookies in oven.

Timer rings! Baby still nursing. Take cookies out of oven while nursing baby. Baby’s hair looks a little…singed.

Let cookies cool on sheet because still nursing.

When done nursing, wander into kitchen. Oh! The cookies! Eat five cookies with two glasses of milk. Feel as if life has returned.

Put rest of cookies into grandmother’s cookie container. Feel sorry for everyone who has not inherited grandmother’s cookie container.

Put in another sheet of cookies. Feel angry at husband for leaving racks in oven during self-cleaning cycle, even though it says right on the oven not to do that. Now cookie sheet will not slide nicely over racks. Feel freshly angry when remembering that husband ran self-cleaning cycle on a hot, hot day, costing god knows how much in a/c.

Eat another cookie.

Baby cries. For a moment, think of feeding baby a cookie. Remember that baby is newborn and cannot eat cookies. Eat baby’s cookie.

Notice dishes and feel that life is very hard indeed. But at least now there are cookies.

All this talk about muffins, I think we’d better have some recipes.

My recipe for lemon poppyseed muffins is to put them on the grocery list. I’ve experimented with various lemon/orange poppyseed recipes, and for me they always come out too dry, and the flavor is never intense enough. The flavor thing is especially irritating because I’ll add, say a tablespoon of lemon extract (not cheap) and also dried lemon zest (not cheap), and I’ll even break down and grate some fresh zest, and the lemon flavor is still barely perceptible. So! Swistle Says: If you want lemon poppyseed muffins, buy a mix, or buy a package of already-made from the bakery.

But if you want Pumpkin Spice Muffins? Stay right here:

Pumpkin Spice Muffins
1 and 2/3 c. flour
1 c. sugar
1 t. baking soda
1/4 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
2-3 t. pumpkin pie spice (or, see below)
2 eggs
1 c. canned pumpkin
1 T. grated lemon peel (or, see below)
1/2 c. butter, melted
1/2 c. chopped walnuts (optional)
you can also put in 1/4-1/2 c. golden raisins, but I never have

Preheat oven to 350F. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spice. In a medium bowl, combine eggs, pumpkin, lemon, butter, and walnuts. Add contents of medium bowl to large bowl and stir just until mixed. Spoon batter evenly into 12 greased or papered muffin cups, and bake 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

Pumpkin pie spice alternative: 1 and 1/2 t. cinnamon, and about 3/4 t. (I just do a well-rounded 1/2 t. so I don’t have to screw around with a bunch of measuring spoons) each of ground ginger and ground cloves. The exact quantities don’t seem to matter much.

Grated lemon peel alternative: I hate grating my own zest, so I put in a t. of lemon extract and maybe half a t. of dried lemon peel–but I think just the extract would be sufficient.

I always double the recipe because I love these muffins and they freeze so well.

Here’s another favorite (the kids like these best):

Banana (and/or Pumpkin) Chocolate Chip Muffins
2 extra-ripe bananas, peeled and mashed (or, see below)
2 eggs
1 c. dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 c. butter, melted
1 t. vanilla
2 and 1/4 c. flour
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. cinnamon
3/4 c. chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F. In a large bowl, combine bananas, eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and chocolate chips. Add contents of medium bowl to large bowl and stir just until mixed. Spoon batter evenly into 12 greased or papered muffin cups, and bake 25-30 minutes.

Banana alternative: Two bananas is roughly 1 c. of banana. Sometimes I use one banana and 1/2 c. canned pumpkin. Sometimes we don’t have any ripe bananas, so I use no banana and use 1 c. of pumpkin instead. It doesn’t seem to affect the flavor much: the cinnamon and chocolate overwhelm the banana/pumpkin.

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Speaking of muffins, do you have a disher? It looks like this:

(Also pictured: our genuine 1960s gold-flecked countertop, covered in knife cuts from previous owners who evidently did not own a cutting board.)

This particular disher is a #20, and it is exactly right for muffins. (Note: the recipes above will make more like 14-16 muffins using a #20 disher. So when I say “exactly right,” I mean “I love it and don’t know if another size would be better or not, because I know nothing about disher sizes except for the one I have.”) It has improved the quality of my life, since I hate trying to fill the cups “evenly” and pre-disher-days I always ended up pinching a little batter from this one to that one in an effort to make them exactly perfect, and also getting muffin batter all over the edges of the muffin pans from glopping batter off the mixing spoon.

I thought of this disher the other day while answering Shauna’s post about gift-giving. It’s an example of one of the times Paul got me something he thought I’d want–not something I asked for–and it’s been a huge success. He’s a fan of Alton Brown, and apparently Alton Brown is a fan of dishers. Alton Brown uses the #20 disher for cookies, which makes big cookies. And who can argue with big cookies? I rest my case: you need a disher.

One of the main reasons we bought our new freezer is because I thought it would be nice if I made a bunch of food ahead of time, to eat after the baby is born. One of my main problems post-partum is food: I despair if there isn’t anything good, and I get homesick for the maternity ward, which, inexplicably, has AWESOME food: big warm chocolate chip cookies, and chicken caesar wraps with tons of fresh dark lettuce and almost too much perfect white-meat chicken, and cinnamon french toast with butter and syrup, and bowls of cut-up fresh fruit. Coming home to choices like bowl of cold cereal or PB&J sandwich can make me crash into tears and despair.

The problem is this: I still don’t like to cook, even if I know it’s for my own future benefit. I do like to bake, so our freezer is filling up with cookies and brownies. And while that’s nice, and cookies and brownies are good for morale, I need to be focusing more on easy, nutritious food or else I’m going to be sitting there weeping, eating an entire bag of frozen brownies and getting the sugar shakes.

I do have one recipe I make pretty regularly, and I’ve frozen two half-batches of it so far. It makes a nice big amount and so it feels worth it, and it freezes well, and it’s quick and easy to heat up, and it’s heartening when you’re feeling sad and like nobody loves you and like you should move in to the maternity ward where they do love you. I like it with a couple of slices of a nice chewy bread, toasted and then buttered and sprinkled with garlic salt.

Swistle’s Soup

• 1 pound or so of ground beef or ground turkey (I use ground turkey, which at our store comes in 1.3 pound packages, and I use the whole package)
• 28 oz can crushed tomatoes (I like Contadina)
• 15 oz can tomato sauce (I like Contadina)
• 4 c. water
• 1 tsp. sugar
• 16 oz package frozen mixed vegetables (I like Birdseye classic blend: carrots, beans, peas, corn)
• 8 oz frozen broccoli (I like to thaw it a little and then snip it with kitchen scissors into smaller pieces)
• 1 envelope Lipton Onion Soup mix
• 2 t. salt (or to taste–I love love love salt so maybe start with less than I use)
• 1 t. crushed red pepper (optional, for spicier soup)

Fry up the ground meat and drain off as much grease as you can. Put the meat into a big pan–at least 6 quart or you’ll be a sorry, sorry cook later on. Add everything else and stir it. Heat to boiling, then reduce it to a simmer and cover it. Let it simmer for half an hour, stirring it occasionally if you feel like it. It’s okay to eat right away, but I think it’s better reheated the next day.

One thing I like about this recipe is that it’s flexible. You don’t have to use broccoli and classic-blend vegetables, you can instead use up the little half packages of vegetables nobody liked as side dishes, or fresh vegetables that are in danger of going bad in the fridge, or a bag of Italian blend vegetables if you’re feeling really wild and crazy. Last summer William grew some green bean vines but didn’t want to eat the green beans, so I snipped some up into my soup every time I made it. Oooh, and lima beans are good.

Not exactly a great recipe for a breastfeeding mother, though, is it? Dried onion. Broccoli. Spicy red pepper. Oh, well.

Incidentally, if you do Weight Watchers Core Plan, this soup is a freebie. Well, unless you get all tight about how many grains of that 1 tsp. of sugar are in each portion.