I am on a self-imposed challenge to use up some odds and ends, trying to make room for our Thanksgiving but also just something I do every few months to clean out the freezer of older things.

We had some hot dogs left from my daughter’s graduation party in June and some neighbor’s had a party recently and gave us their leftover hot dog buns, which I froze (having had a miscount for the party so luckily NOT left with too many hot dog buns!). Anyway, the menu tonight was for barbecued hot dogs and a can of Bush’s baked beans, which we love. I decided to augment that with a very simple vegetable soup, which I might spice up later in the week but left very simple tonight.

• 1 Tbs oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 stalks of celery, diced
• 2 carrots, peeled and diced
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 cups homemade chicken broth
• 1 can of green beans, drained
• 1 potato, peeled and diced

This is the very simple version.

Heat the oil and saute the onion a few minutes, until softened. (I do this while I’m prepping the garlic, carrots, and celery.)  Add the garlic and stir, cooking a  minute or so. Add the celery and carrots and stir.  (At this point I peel and dice the potato, letting the other vegetables cook.)  Add the potato and green beans, if using, and whatever seasonings you like (thyme in this case). (I don’t normally use canned green beans and can’t remember why I bought these, hence they were great fodder for soup. I might also, at this point, add some chopped cabbage and/or zucchini and/or peas or corn or … you get the idea.)

I didn’t even bother thawing my chicken broth but just put the 4 cups of it in frozen and let it melt while the vegetables finished sauteing. I let the whole thing simmer 20 minutes or so, long enough to get the potatoes soft.

Had I wanted a heartier soup I might have added some rice or beans or pasta. If I’d wanted something spicier I might have added some salsa or pesto or even some spicy sausage.

If  you like, you can make this very simple the first night, as I did here, then spice it up a bit another night later in the week to go with something else.  Sausage and shrimp and okra could make it into gumbo. Chicken and black beans and salsa and some crushed tortilla chips could go great with a Mexican meal.

I do think the key is good broth. I haven’t bought chicken broth in years. I make my own homemade chicken broth or turkey broth and freeze it.

Clear Soup with Mushrooms, Tofu and Daikon

I picked up a used copy of Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat on a whim. I enjoyed the stories and her descriptions of various foods and cooking guidelines.  I didn’t really pick it up for the recipes but this easy soup was worth the $3 I spent for the book!  We all love Japanese soup and the instant miso packages are okay but not great.  This soup calls for dashi (made from seaweed and bonito flakes) but when I went to our Asian grocer I saw a packet of dashi soup base and used that.  Everything is in a bag and you simmer it for 10 minutes in 3 cups of water, then remove the bag. (The bag is like a tea bag.)   The soup was fantastic.  Her original recipe called for just tofu and shitake mushrooms. I used the regular small mushrooms from our grocery store because I had some and added some daikon (Japanese radish) cut in matchstick pieces because I saw that in another soup and it sounded good to me.

• 3 cups dashi (her recipe called for 4 but my instant stuff made 3)
• 8 ounces tofu
• 4 button mushrooms, sliced thinly
• 1/2 cup of daikon, peeled and sliced into matchstick pieces
• 1.5 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sake
• 1 green onion, sliced thinly

Rinse the tofu gently and cut into cubes. She called for heating the tofu and cooking the mushrooms in separate pans, then placing the tofu in one half of the bowl and the mushrooms in the other half and covering with the dashi broth. I just heated the tofu and cooked the mushrooms in the broth.

So make the dashi by simmering the tea bag of goodies for ten minutes in 3 cups of water.  Take the bag out and add the soy, salt and sake. (Note: we found this a bit salty and I had already cut the salt back so you might even eliminate the salt. I think the fact that this was “packaged” probably meant they added salt), add the tofu and simmer gently for a few minutes, then add the daikon and simmer a few more minutes, and finally add the mushrooms and cook just another 3 minutes or so (so roughly ten minutes for the tofu in total, 5 minutes for the daikon and 3 for the mushrooms).

Oh, I think I had some dried roasted seaweed out because I was making onigiri too and threw in a few flakes of it. That’s the dark green.

She says that cooking the ingredients separately helps keep the broth clear. I might try that next time but it’s not very cloudy and it tasted great this way!

Ladle into 3 or 4 bowls and garnish with the green onion slices.

NOTE: I didn’t really want leftovers so probably used more tofu than needed if this is a side dish. It was fortuitous though. I was winging some steak to go with this, along with some rice and spinach. The steak had been frozen in marinade and was just blah. So we filled up on soup and rice!

White Bean and Ham Soup

This is from The Supper Book: 10th Anniversary Edition by Marion Cunningham. Kind of funny–you can buy a hardcover of this on Amazon (used) for $3 (plus shipping) but the paperback version, that I have is $8 (still a deal!). This is so simple, but so delicious. Certainly frugal, let’s see $1 for the beans, two onions for 50 cents maybe. The ham is the expensive part and that’s only because I actually did buy a small piece of ham just to make this. Normally I would have cooked a ham and used a ham bone but that’s hard to do with just the two of us! So I used about $2.50 of ham. Her recipe says 4 servings but I know we’ll get at least 6, likely 8. I’ll likely serve with a small sandwich, like a tuna melt.  So $1 / serving or less.  You’d pay more for a can of ham and bean soup and it wouldn’t be half as good and you’d get two small servings.

• 1 pound white navy beans or Great Norther beans
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 cups or so of chopped ham or smoked pork butt or a leftover ham bone with some meat on it
• water to cover
• salt and pepper to taste

Soak the beans, either overnight or by the quick soak method: cover with water, bring to a boil, cover, turn the stove off, and let the beans sit in the hot water for an hour or so. Then drain and use.

Put the beans, onion and ham in a large stockpot. Cover with water by 1 1/2″ . Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer, cover partially and simmer 2 hours or so, until the beans are tender. Watch the water level and add a bit more if needed. Taste and add salt and pepper as desired.

This is ham and bean soup at its simplest and it’s delicious. If you want more in it, you could think about adding some carrots and celery (I would saute first in a bit of oil with the chopped onion then add the other ingredients.)  You could also use chicken broth if you wanted. But I think you will be surprised at how delicious this is in its most simple form.

Mexican Inspired Chicken Soup

I wanted some soup for lunches later in the week so cooked this up to go with the carne asada soft tacos I was making for dinner. I wanted something Mexican oriented and with some vegetables so played around a bit and came up with this soup. I used some corn I had frozen after we had leftover corn on the cob. I just sliced it off the cob and froze it. I liked it in the soup because it was larger chunks of corn rather than just individual kernels.

• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 stalk celery, diced
• 1 tsp taco seasoning (optional)
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp salt (depending on your broth)
• 6 cups homemade chicken broth
• 1 cup cooked chicken, diced
• 1 cup corn (I used frozen)
• 1 tomato, seeded and chopped
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro for garnish

This could have gone any number of directions depending on what I had found while rooting through the freezer and vegetable bin.  If I’d wanted a lighter soup, I’d have left out the chicken but I was thinking this would make a nice lunch for me later. If I’d wanted a heavier soup I would have added some cooked beans and maybe some potatoes or rice. Also, if I’d had extra salsa without the avocados I would have added that instead of or in addition to the fresh tomato from my garden.

Heat the oil and cook the onion and celery until softened. Sprinkle with the taco seasoning, cumin and salt and cook a minute. Add the rest of the ingredient except for the fresh cilantro and simmer 30 minutes, stirring now and then. Garnish with the cilantro and serve.

Mmm!  Could also add some diced avocado, grated cheese and crushed tortilla chips if you wanted a heartier soup.

This one is from my sister. She sent it via email just after I’d decided to make some soup for dinner and was trying to decide which kind!  It goes together VERY quickly and is delicious!  She called for turkey kielbasa but I used some smoked beef sausage because I was using up the leftover sausage from when I made the Shrimp and Sausage Gumbo a few days ago.

• 6 ounces precooked sausage, sliced
• 1 cup diced green, red, or yellow bell pepper (I used red)
• 1 14 ¼ ounce can fat free chicken broth
• 1 15 ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
• ¼ cup picante sauce or salsa
• chopped cilantro (optional)

Cook the sausage in a medium saucepan until lightly browned. If you’re using very low fat sausage, you might want to spray with some cooking spray or give the pan a light coating of olive oil first.   Cook, stirring now and then, until the sausage is lightly browned. Add the diced peppers and cook, stirring, another minute or so.

Add the broth, beans and salsa and simmer, covered, 5-10 minutes.   Add the chopped cilantro just before serving (or add it to each bowl individually). Makes about 4 1 cup servings.

We had a cup of this with some Welsh Rarebit on English muffins. Great dinner for a rainy night!

This comes almost straight out of The Perfect Recipe for Losing Weight and Eating Great, a cookbook I liked so much I sent copies to my sister and best friend. I really like Pam Anderson’s books and have several. This one appealed to me because it deals with the “eating lunch at home” issue. I work from my home but I don’t really want to cook a lunch every day! She has some great ideas for lunches and salads that work great. This is one of the soups, which comes from a master recipe she has. One of the variations is this shrimp and sausage gumbo version, which was really good, both for dinner last night and lunch today. I have 1 or 2 more servings left as well.

• 1 quart (4 cups) chicken broth
• 1 15 oz can diced tomatoes with juice
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 onion, peeled and diced
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 3 small sausages (6 ounces), sliced thinly
• 6 oz shrimp (I used frozen)
• 1 yellow bell pepper, stemmed, seeded and diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 6 oz frozen okra
• 1/4 cup raw white rice
• hot sauce (Tabasco) served at the table

If your broth is frozen, as mine was, microwave until warmed. Throw in the tomatoes and warm them too.

Heat the oil in a Dutch oven or soup pot and cook the onion about 5 minutes, stirring. Add the thyme and cayenne and stir, cooking another minute or two. Add the sliced sausage (I used a smoked beef but almost anything would be good), yellow pepper, celery, okra, rice, broth and tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat, cover partially, and simmer about 20 minutes, stirring now and then. Turn off the heat and stir in the shrimp. Cover and let stand 5 minutes until the shrimp is cooked through.  I allowed about 7 minutes since my shrimp was frozen but if I’d thought ahead I would have run it under cold water to defrost first.

Stir and serve with the hot sauce at the table so everyone can make it as hot (or not) as they like.  This was really, really good!  It’s like a thick soup. I’ve never had gumbo anywhere so have no idea how “authentic” it is, but can say it’s good!  And was just as good for lunch today. I just microwaved a bowl for a few minutes to warm it up. Mmm!

I never ate chicken and dumplings growing up so my experiments with trying different recipes aren’t based on trying to recreate anything from my childhood but just playing around with a dish my girls and I all liked the first time I made it.  The first chicken and dumpling recipe I tried was good, but I don’t like relying on store bought “cream of whatever” soups.   Last night, I merged a few recipes. I think the dumplings were better in the first recipe because of the parsley and cayenne. These were bit bland. But I liked just drizzling the flour and water into the soup to thicken it rather than adding a creamed soup. So next time I might combine the recipes.

• 1 whole chicken
• water to cover and then some
• a few bay leaves
• 2-3 stalks celery, cut up
• 1-2 carrots
• 1 small onion, peeled and chopped
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/2 cup water

Dumplings:

• 2 cups flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 2 Tbs butter
• 1 cup milk

Rinse the chicken and put in a large stockpot. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Skim off any scum that rises, then add the bay leaves, salt, pepper, garlic powder, carrots, celery and onion.  Simmer 45 minutes to an hour then remove the chicken and let cool a bit so you can remove the meat. Discard the bones and skin and fat. Shred the chicken into large pieces and return to the pot of broth.

Combine the flour and water, then stir into the broth to thicken.

Mix up the dumplings by sifting together the flour, baking powder, salt and pepper. (And next time I’ll add some dried parsley and cayenne pepper.)  Cut in the butter then add the milk and mix. I did this all the food processor.

Bring the broth to a simmer and slowly drop in small spoonfuls of the dumpling mix. Simmer 15 minutes until cooked through. Try not to stir too much as you don’t want the dumplings to break up into small bits.

Eldest is off for her first year of college. Youngest chose Cheeseburger Soup as our first meal together with just the two of us.  I took shortcuts tonight, using a can of cream of mushroom soup instead of making my own white sauce and using some chopped mushrooms. Original recipe is here. Here’s what I did tonight.

• 3/4 pound of ground beef
• 1 onion, diced
• 3 carrots, peeled and diced
• 2 stalks of celery, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 3 potatoes, peeled and diced
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 14.5 ounce can of cream of mushroom (or whatever) soup
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• 8 ounces cubed or shredded American or Cheddar cheese
• 1/4 cup sour cream

Brown the ground beef, breaking it up as it cooks. Add the onion and cook 5 minutes or so.  Drain the fat off and add the carrots and celery and cook, stirring periodically, another 10 minutes or so.

Add the broth, potatoes, salt, pepper, basil and parsley. Bring to a low simmer and cover. Cook, stirring now and then, about 20 minutes, until the potatoes are soft.

Stir in the cream of mushroom soup, stirring until heated through. Stir in the cheese and then just before serving stir in the sour cream.

This is not health food. But it is hearty and filling and relatively cheap per serving.  There are LOTS of leftovers and it will provide us with many lunches this coming week, plus another dinner.

I made a soup tonight from bits and pieces and it turned out quite good. I had a tub of some leftover frozen squash and corn and lima beans in the freezer, which I incorporated. I had also frozen some leftover tortellini one night, thinking it would be good in soup.  When I make chicken or turkey broth, I freeze 4 cup portions for soup. I used one of those also. From the pantry, I added a can of diced tomatoes, a diced onion, and a few cloves of garlic minced. From the frig, I added an egg and some grated Parmesan. So here’s a great way to use up those leftover bits and pieces…

• 1 Tbs oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1 -2 cups leftover frozen vegetables (or diced fresh carrots, celery, squash, etc.)
• 1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
• 1 cup leftover frozen tortellini (or just add some pasta or beans or cubed potato)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil and sauté the onion and garlic a few minutes, until softened. Add the broth and vegetables. Bring to a simmer and stir in the pasta or tortellini. Cook until the pasta is done.

Whisk the egg in a small bowl, then drizzle into the soup stirring constantly. Add the cheese, salt and pepper, then serve.

Who else has creatively used some bits of leftovers? I love reading these ideas from you all when we get a thread going about this. Soup’s an easy one.  Other favorites of ours include burritos, fried rice, and quiche.

I made this Thai Noodle Soup tonight for dinner. Oh my.  So good!

I used a quart of homemade chicken broth I had in the freezer and about 1/3 of a package of firm tofu. I wasn’t sure what kind of pepper to use so used a jalapeno.

This is just unbelievably good! Not at all spicy but very flavorful.