While making chicken soup, I thought of this great title. I wasn’t planning on posting about chicken soup, but when a good title comes along, I must write about it.
What can I say? This soup is made after feasting on a whole rotisserie chicken we bought from Sam’s Club for five dollars. Being a family of two we had chicken dinner for two days and what was left was still enough to make chicken soup. I learned soup making from the many years my mom and grandma made soups like this After-Thanksgiving turkey soup. One of our favorites I came up with is pot roast soup.
If you are trying to stretch your food to last longer or be the ultimate frugal food fashioner, then this recipe is for you as it is only put into action after you eat and feast on a roast chicken. This goes with other roasts, too!
General Soup Making
Lets start with the messy part, picking the meat off the bones and reserving it to add till last. Put the bones and any skin into the pot, and add some vegetable broth if you have it on hand. When I made this soup, I only had a quart of vegetable broth, but that is okay. I added 3 or 4 more quarts of water as it cooked down.
To the bones, add some whole peppercorns, maybe 10 or so, and 1 or 2 bay leaves. Now bring to a boil and then cover and simmer an hour. I don’t add salt as the vegetable broth has salt and when I add a little chicken base to enhance the flavor, it has some salt.
Now, strain the broth. I use a strainer over either my 8-cup measurer or another pot. I wanted to use the same pot I used to cook the bones, as it fits nicely into my refrigerator.
I start out adding one large chopped yellow onion and let that simmer about 2o minutes. Next, I add garlic that was harvested from my garden. I used 4- peeled garlic cloves and used my garlic press, and it all goes into the pot – even what is in the press – and I dip the press in the soup to make sure it all gets in. It is here I will add a little dill weed (about 1/4 of a teaspoon), and some chicken base – a couple teaspoons. Whenever making your soup, flavor to your taste. I also added a little more than half a pint of my leftover chopped tomatoes from canning.
While onions are simmering, I chop all the vegetables: celery, carrots, cauliflower, yellow squash. Two vegetables we always have on hand are carrots and celery. This time, the yellow squash is from my fall squash crop and the cauliflower was left-over from canning my own Chicago-style hot giardiniera. Like my title, everything but the kitchen sink can go in as far as vegetables. And this means any vegetables that you might have cooked in the last few days and have not expired can go in.
Add all the uncooked, chopped vegetables in, bring to a boil, and simmer till vegetables are done. If you have cooked, leftover vegetables, add those last with the meat. Bring back to a boil and simmer a few minutes. Taste to see if you need to add anything. Once heated through, you can serve, but we like to cool it in the refrigerator and eat the next day. This allows the flavors to meld and, if there is any fat, it will be able to take off as it will be on top in a solid mass that you can lift out with a slotted spoon and toss in the trash.
Eating and Storing
When we have our soup, we usually like to have other nibbling foods, like crusty bread, crackers, sliced apple, or cheeses that we have on hand. This time, it was crusty bread and a wedge of gorgonzola.
Since I made a big pot and there is only the two of us, the next step is to let the soup cool down and ladle exactly six ladles per one freezer quart zip-lock bag. For us, this is one giant soup mug and, with our nibblers, is just right for dinner. You need to determine your ladles by your size ladle and the mug you serve the soup in. After that, I get the air out, seal them, lay them flat on a cookie sheet, and pop the cookie sheet into the freezer. Once frozen, I sort them in with my other soups that are in boxes in the freezer.
One last note about ways to serve your soup. I will put leftover spaghetti noodles or rice in portions and, if we feel like noodles in the soup, I microwave them and chop them with two knives criss-crossing back and forth on a cutting board or just a plate. Rice I just leave frozen and dump into the soup when cooking.
Everything But The Kitchen Sink, Chicken Soup
I know I didn’t give you the amounts of vegetables and other ingredients, but that is the beauty about making leftover chicken soup. It is your ‘everything but the kitchen sink, chicken soup.’ A soup that you can make after feasting on a chicken that you roasted or, in our case, we bought from Sam’s Club for 5 dollars. When you think about it, where can you get a meat for 5 dollars, eat it for two dinners, and then have enough for soup? This chicken just seems to keep on giving.
We had a total of 7 meals. I really didn’t keep track of the cost of the vegetables, but if you just take the original cost of the chicken and divide by 7, that equals to 71 cents per meal or 36 cents per person. Now that is really stretching your food dollars and a good phrase is “Waste not, want not”.
Happy Soup Making!
Nancy Dru
