FREE SOUP!

There are two methods I use to make soup at no extra cost.

1. I keep a large ziplock bag in my fridge. Throughout the week, all vegetable peelings, vegetable ends, etc. get tossed into the bag. The bag usually has a lot of carrot peel, potato peel, celery ends and leaves, onion peels and ends, garlic peel and ends, broccoli stalk peel and ends, etc. I sometimes also have a jar in the fridge that I use to save all the vegetable cooking water from the week. If I cook frozen peas, I drain the cooking water into my “soup jar.”

At the end of the week, dump all your “savings” into a large pot. Cover it all with water and simmer it slowly for a couple of hours. Strain it and save the broth. This is the base of your soup.

Now you have a few options:

-Freeze the broth to use as a base for soups that you have recipes for, or make up your own.

-Turn it into a soup immediately by adding in cooked rice or lentils or beans or WHATEVER, and chop up some fresh veggies and add some seasonings and make a whole new soup.

-Use this liquid for the second Free Soup option below…

2. I have two or three empty ice cream buckets in my freezer. These are the big ones – 4L, I think. One is for chicken, one for beef, and if I have a third, I use it for ham or veggie. Whenever there are leftovers at the end of a meal, I put them into the appropriate bucket. If we have chicken stir fry and there are leftovers, they go into the chicken bucket. If we have shepherd’s pie with ground beef, those leftovers go into the beef bucket. Whenever I add new leftovers, I make sure they are covered with water or broth or leftover cooking liquid from veggies. Then the bucket goes back into the freezer. When a bucket is full, I let it thaw and pour it into my big soup pot. We reheat it and taste it. Sometimes we need to add some salt or other seasonings to give it more flavor, but usually, it is the most delicious soup ever!

These soups are different every time. But it’s like a taste adventure! And the best part is, it’s FREE! You’re making soup out of things you would have normally thrown away. For us, these soups are usually enough for two meals each. TWO MEALS FOR FREE!

Waste not, want not!