Week End Soup

What could be more comforting than soup? Well, maybe these two.

As the title suggests, I make soup at the end of every week.  I just use whatever I have on hand and get rid of all the old limp vegetables that my daughter would just throw out :) In fact, I took several stalks of celery right out of her hand-RRRIP!!! -as she was about to toss them into the garbage. Blasphemy!!

Of course, she didn't grow up during the depression...neither did I for that matter, but I grew up with parents who did and who, as a result, didn't waste anything. To me it was like my parents invented the slogan - reduce, reuse and recycle.

Now I'm not as thrifty as they were, but I do pretty well. Unlike my parents (and fellow blogger Kim) I don't have chickens to eat up scraps and my cats are pretty fussy. Chicken or cheese yes, veggies no! Nor do I have a compost bin. So all the scraps go into my soup. And it is soooo good! I've noticed lately a number of bloggers looking for frugal meal ideas and one blogger said she serves homemade soup twice a week for dinner, usually meat-free and it really stretches her budget.

That doesn't mean you have to give up protein - I always put lentils or barley or kidney beans (all very cheap!) in my soup for protein and if you add a healthy dollop of sour cream or plain yogurt you then have soup with complete protein. When I was a teenager my mother could barely keep up with my soup demands. During the winter I would heat up a bowl of her veggie soup for breakfast...and yes I did have to walk a mile to high school 😋

I keep my pantry stocked with chicken and/or vegetable stock, cans of diced tomatoes and tomato paste and lots of dry legumes/peas/lentils/barley etc. That's the basis of my soup then I add the old veggies and give them a second life.....this week's version has carrots and parsnips leftover from roasting root veggies a while back, onions, celery and zucchini. With red lentils this week. And lots of fresh garlic. Spices include basil, thyme, oregano, black pepper, a wee bit of cayenne and lots of crushed chili peppers.

With the wild winter weather we've been having lately where -23c has been the norm it's been wonderful to wrap my hands around a hot bowl of soup after an hour of shovelling snow. That's not to say I'm not relieved that the temperature is going back to, and above, normal this week. YAY! 

That's my soup tale and now I'm off to eat that bowl of soup pictured above - after I heat it up of course...

Oh...and I'm going to try to remember to save all of the water I cook vegetables in this week and make my own stock. I'll put a mason jar on the counter to remind me. One less thing to buy!

Any tips out there about making good stock?