Cooking with Annie: Episode 4 – Using up Leftovers = Potato Soup

Since we are all cooking at home more, there’s got to be some leftovers happening in those kitchens of yours.  Before they get shoved to the back of the fridge, become a science experiment, and then head to the compost pile, what if we talked about how you can turn those little bits of this and that into another meal?

Now, more than ever, being creative with what we have on hand makes good sense.  Maybe you lost your job and you need to be really frugal about what’s happening in your household right now.  Or maybe you’ve got more people or fewer people in your house than normal (more if your kids or parents are with you, less if you are social distancing by yourself).  Perhaps you are only going to the grocery store once every two weeks.  Probably more than one of these is true for you.  No matter how the corona shutdown is affecting you, the practice of using up leftovers is a good one to bring back or begin for the first time.

How to actually accomplish using up leftovers without having the same meal again and again, is a little bit of an art, but also there are some basic guidelines.  In this episode I talk about a couple of basic steps for making soup.

1. Pick three things in your refrigerator that you think will go together in a soup and cut them up into soup-sized pieces.
2. Dice and sauté about 1 cup of onions unless you have leftover onions in the fridge and then use up those first.
3. When the onions are soft, add the cut up leftovers.
4. Add about 4 cups of water or broth to the pot and bring to a simmer.
5. Check for salt and pepper and either serve as a chunky, rustic soup or puree in a blender for a more elegant result.
6. Add any garnishes that will go – think leftover fresh herbs, stale bread for croutons, a few minced nuts, or some kind of dairy like grated cheese or creme fraiche.

In our family, even BC (before covid-19), we would do this once every week or every other week.  When the girls were little and taking lunch to school, we’d heat up some broth and add leftover noodles and veggies with perhaps a little chicken and this would be their lunch soup.

In any event, this is just one of many ways to use up leftovers and over the next several weeks I’ll be sharing more.  Hope you find it helpful!

Annie
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