Has anyone else tried Garbage Soup? I was flipping through my More with Less cookbook about a month ago, and I came upon this recipe. Actually, it's more of a concept or activity than a recipe. Garbage soup. We love it. It's a way to save money and improve your improvisational cooking skills all in one.
To make Garbage Soup, set aside one pot as your weekly soup pot. Put about six cups of water in it. Put it in the fridge. When you start making dinner, take the pot out of the fridge, put it on the burner, turn the burner on low, and then start throwing in all the leftovers that aren't worth saving into the pot. That's right, everything. When you're making dinner, throw in the parings, the clippings, the bones, the stems, the flour from the cutting board, everything animal, vegetable, or mineral. Let it simmer during dinner. Then after the meal, throw in all the bones, the leavings from the plates, the tiny bits and juices from the pan that aren't worth refrigerating, and the milk the baby didn't drink. Let it simmer until the dishes are done (simmering kills the germs.). Turn the heat off and let it cool until bedtime. Put it back in the fridge.
Do this every night for about a week. Then strain the solids out of the broth. Throw the solids into your compost pile. The broth should be flavorful and colorful by this point. Put in whatever you like. Tada! Soup.
We started making Garbage Soup because we were trying to save money. Seth says it's like a free meal every week. I say not quite, but I'll concede the point. It's an excellent way to get your money's worth out of your groceries. It also prevents finding scary things in the back of the fridge a month later.
But we've also noticed that it's just good soup. It's a nice, thick soup stock with a lot of flavor. Granted, every week is a little different, and you have to match your soup to your broth. We had chicken soup one week and purple cabbage turkey vegetable the next. Last week was beef vegetable. There are no standard ingredients or spices. You just have to follow your nose and figure out what would go well with the broth in front of you. Add some fresh bread or grilled cheese sandwiches, and you a have a cheap, nourishing tasty meal. You just can't lose.
3 comments:
That sounds really interesting. We rarely have any leftovers to throw in something like that, but plenty of peelings, bones and extra flour. Hmm...
It's very good. Seth always used to complain that my broths were too bland. We don't have that issue anymore.
I've done something similar in the past Jen and it usually turns out pretty good. I wouldn't put in anything from the cabbage family though (too stinky,) and milk has never worked for me either.
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