My Mom’s soup

I promised a reader that I would share what my mom put in her soup every week when I was growing up as a kid. In one of my posts I made a comment about my mom not wasting any food and turning it into soup every weekend. So I’m here to share what went into them. Finally, after almost a month of not writing on this blog.

It’s really not complicated. But it may sound really gross to people because she literally would put almost every leftover from the week into it. Mind you, the leftovers were small quantities of everything, but the batch would be just enough to feed five of us, plus enough for us to have seconds.

Here’s a rough idea:

• Noodles
• Spaghetti sauce
• Rice
• Chicken/Meat (whatever was made that week from drumsticks, steaks, to beef stroganoff)
• Vegetables (corn, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower etc.)
• Beans (lentils, chickpeas)
• Potatoes (even mashed)

Then she would combine this with water and a soup stock. Often just vegetable stock. Add a dash of salt, pepper (sometimes fresh ginger) and voila!

For some reason it tasted awesome. Nothing would ever get wasted. And even if the soup broth looked cloudy or whatever, it was still delicious with a bit of crackers.

I think what made it taste so good was just the fact that I got to sit down with my family and eat with them.

In my life now, I don’t even have enough leftovers to make a soup with and my ingredients would only be rice, beans and vegetables. My leftovers get eaten the next day or within the next few days so if I’m making a soup, I’m making a soup from scratch.

 

Did any of your parents ever do the same thing growing up? Or do you do that now?