It has been longer than I meant it to be... I know, I'm the worst.
Let me first begin with a confession.
Monday's Chinook defrosted a few more of my "outside freezer" meals than I had hoped that it would. So in all honesty it was kind of a poor week for this challenge because the weather was out to get me. I ended up eating the fruits of my labour on previous occasions for most of the rest of the week.
I have a solution however! I will continue in the spirit of the challenge until I have actually scrounged a full seven days of mains.
~ Day 3: Wednesday ~
Wednesday I had more food than I could handle! I had to cook many a defrosted dish (okay..3) in addition to the cleverly scrounged meal that I had already committed to for this series:
Freezer Mystery Soup! (Later named "Creamy Tomato" for appeal purposes)
When I had first read this idea in Amy Dacyczyn's The Tightwad Gazette, I will admit; I was horrified. The idea of pulling random leftovers from the freezer into a soup goulash didn't have much promise, flavour wise, to me. However thriftiness won out, AND she had promised that this method yielded some surprisingly good combos.
~ Rabbit Trail ~
The key to having a great $0 grocery week, and eliminating waste, is really to freeze your leftovers right away. I am not as religious about this as I really should be, but I kick myself regularly for throwing out food that I should have just frozen.
Amy D. advocates for freezing things immediately, but I try to give myself a one to two day window to eat as much as we can for lunches etc. For people with larger families, it may work better to freeze immediately because there is probably not as much left after one serving. Since my house is just me and my husband, freezing larger dishes after one use would fill my freezer almost instantly! So I usually try and get things into a small re-usable container before freezing.
(This is probably also my problem, because then I forget about things entirely sometimes.)
~ End Rabbit Trail ~
On to the soup!
Step 1.) Open your freezer(s) and have a good look around. I usually empty the entire thing onto my counter, but I only have the little one in my fridge. Pull out any leftovers that can be incorporated into a soup - be imaginative! You will also need chicken or beef stock. If you don't have any homemade stock, I usually add some bouillon and enough water to just cover the rest of the Clearly a lasagna is not ideal, but do not be picky beyond reason.
Here are the ingredients for my freezer soup:
We have some beef stewing meat, cottage cheese (I over-bought for perogies once, thus the whole container), homemade salsa, half can of cream of mushroom, spaghetti squash, spaghetti meat sauce, lemon butter sauce w/almonds (leftover from fish.)
After the picture I decided to use the beef for something else, and I added the leftover seafood spaghetti sauce from Monday. (This time my husband was actually tricked into eating the mussels...mua ha ha) Also not pictured is the chicken stock which was my base.
Step 2.) Everything goes into the slow cooker on low overnight.
Step 3.) In the morning I added milk to make it creamier (complementing the cottage cheese.)
I also added some frozen shrimp to give it a little more heartiness (My husband and I are big omnivores! I very rarely have a meatless lunch or dinner. If your family has a tolerance for vegetarian dishes, so much the better for your food budget!)
This is where you taste and tweak! Try the soup and add to it as necessary. Salt, frozen veggies, and assorted spices to taste. Onion powder and garlic are a good helper for soups that need a little something extra. Soy sauce is a great addition to beef based soups. It can also help out an overly weak beef stock. I also usually add more fresh veggies at Step 2, but this time I had enough in my leftovers.
At this point you would also add any leftover pasta. It is important only to cook noodles long enough to reheat them. Do not add them as the beginning as they turn into disgusting mushiness. Clearly I tried this one time thinking it would not be that bad. It was. Don't do it.
And voila! Creamy tomato soup.
Do not be afraid of mixing pretty much anything as long as the flavours could conceivably go together. I say "conceivably" to push the limits for the faint of heart! Between all of my leftovers I have a soup with traces of beef, chicken, mussels, shrimp, and almonds. Not to mention lemon (fish sauce), lime (salsa), cilantro (salsa), and mushroom (mushroom soup)! AND it did turn out very well!
I also made another small soup with leftover taco soup, which will be my next post! This was something that I left out because I didn't think it would go, but who knows! Maybe I should have let it be!
I can honestly say that beyond my soggy noodle soup, I have enjoyed the results of this mystery dish every time! Even the soggy noodle soup actually tasted quite good, I just have some long-standing texture issues. Other people told me that they enjoyed it.
So go ahead! Take out those leftovers and hide the process from your family! It will be very satisfying.
Stay tuned for day 3.5 ( a similar adventure with taco soup that I won't cheat by calling day 4.)
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