The women’s organization of our church is holding a service swap next month. I signed up to provide homemade soup.

But as I was thinking about it, it occurred to me that rather than bring in a pot of homemade soup, maybe it would be even better to give a large container of homemade soup MIX. This way the lucky recipient of my service could have several batches of soup when it was most needed and/or most convenient.

This idea led me to hunting for the very best homemade soup mixes ever created. One idea that kept popping up, over and over was for a variety of homemade soup mix recipes to be given away in canning jars: green split pea, Italian barley, coconut curry, chicken noodle, spicy black bean, and 5-bean soup, for instance. I found these on www.wholefully.com/smalltoken; you can go to this site to download recipes for these soups.

While a variety of soup mixes in canning jars is a very attractive idea, I really wanted to find a recipe for a basic soup mix that could be turned into a number of different soups. I found a recipe for potato soup in Aunt Annie’s recipe box that works well.

This is specifically a potato soup mix, but we all know how versatile a good potato soup is. You can always mix it up by adding shredded Cheddar cheese, chopped ham, bacon crumbles, diced and sautéed mushrooms, clams, steamed broccoli and/or cauliflower, steamed kale, and so on. This fits the bill.

AUNT ANNIE’S POTATO SOUP MIX (yield: 6 servings)

1 3/4 cups instant mashed potato flakes

1 1/2 cups dry powdered milk

2 to 3 teaspoons chicken bouillon granules

3 teaspoons dried minced onion

1 ½ teaspoons dried parsley

1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper

1/8 teaspoon dried thyme

Pinch ground turmeric

Salt to taste

Combine potato flakes, dry milk, bouillon granules, onion, parsley, pepper, thyme, turmeric and salt in a bowl and stir to mix. Process ingredients in blender or food processor to create a soup powder. Pour into pint or quart jars (depending on how much you make).

Attach the following instructions: To serve, place ¼ cup soup mix in bowl. Stir in 1 cup boiling water until smooth. For variations, add shredded cheese, sautéed mushrooms, chopped onion, diced and drained clams, diced ham or bacon crumbles, etc.

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Now that I’ve nailed the right recipe, I’m wondering about different lovely ways to present this mix. There is the obvious canning jar approach, and it always works. But are there other ways? Here’s what I found that other creative gift-givers are doing:

Soup mix in mugs. The package contains 6 large soup mugs, each holding ¼ cup of the soup mix. Nice idea to give not just the soup but the mug to serve it in, don’t you think?

For bean and pasta soup mixes, gingham or checkered drawstring bags would be fun. And the bag could always be used for other things once the soup mix is used up.

And why not put your soup mix in glass refrigerator keeps. These would be perfect with a ¼ measuring cups included.

And speaking of glass, Hobby Lobby has a huge assortment of all sorts of glass containers (most with lids) that would also make beautiful presentations for homemade soup mixes.

And still speaking of glass, there are so often clever finds at your local thrift store!

And finally, even a humble paper lunch sack can make a lovely gift presentation. You can get as fancy or simple as you’d like. The key here would be to place your soup mix in a plastic bag and then tuck it into your paper gift bag, however. This is one of the best ideas yet—affordable and easy.

So homemade soup mix. I’ll make up a big batch, package it in a pretty fashion, and give it with prepping instructions. It’s like giving homemade LOVE!