Things I don't buy: soup

Anyone who has read my blog for a while should realize I eat a lot of soup. 

It's cheap, it's healthy (or can be), it's a great way of using up odd bits of food... and I simply like soup!

The one thing I don't do, however, is buy soup. The last time I bought condensed soup was a few years ago, during a particularly bad cold, when I didn't feel like eating, let alone cooking. (Which is why a stash of homemade soup is a good thing!).

It was DISGUSTING.

So disgusting that the second can stayed in the cupboard until I found it a couple of months ago, long expired. Now, I really don't like wasting food, but I figured I was doing the world a favour by trashing it  ;)


And I noticed recently that some stores are selling liter jars of soup in the deli section - for over $6 a liter!!!

I don't buy soup, and I especially don't buy it for more than five time the cost of gasoline!
 
Regular readers should also realize I seldom use a recipe for soup.  It's a flavour base (generally stock) plus bits of solids (meat and/or veggies), with an optional bit of starch or grains (pasta, barley or other grains, potatoes, etc.). Some soups I make can be more expensive (leek and blue cheese, French onion with beer), and some are almost free, like veggie soup made with produce from the garden, or beef soup made from a leftover roast. 

Clam chowder, corn chowder, bacon and potato, chicken and rice, tomato tortellini, roasted red pepper, turkey noodle, Italian sausage, beef and barley, curried root veggie with chickpeas... the list is almost endless, and is limited only to your taste and budget.

My one failure in this area, though, is stock.  While I have chicken/turkey stock down pat, I still buy beef and vegetable stock. So, one resolution this year is to start making my own.  Especially vegetable stock, which is so cheap to make.  I'll start saving scraps in a dedicated container in the freezer, and when it's full, a bit of water and some time on the stove - and hey, presto, vegetable stock.  And I made beef stock a couple of weeks ago, from some bones my mother saved for me from a roast.  Again, it's not hard, it just requires some time and water :)

This will be the year of stock making (and canning!), and then stock can be one more thing that I don't buy.