Living on Less – Soup and Pizza – Frugal Foods

My grandmother had a saying that she lived by “Gather up the scraps and use them up.”  She was a genius at using up leftovers and creating some great meals.  Food is expensive and throwing out leftovers is a waste of money.  I have learned many ways to use up leftovers that my family loves.  Here are two of our favorites.

Frugal Soup

I keep a container in my freezer that holds about 6 cups.  Into it I put leftover vegetables and broth.  We all have some vegetables leftover at the end of a meal that consist of perhaps 1 serving or less.  I used to put these into a container and stick them in the fridge where I would find them weeks later and would throw them out.  Now I take the leftover vegetables from a meal and dump them in this container in the freezer.  This will not work with leftover vegetables such as broccoli and cauliflower, but does work well with corn, carrots, peas, green beans and mixed vegetables.  If I am using canned vegetables for dinner or in a recipe, I always pour the vegetable water in this container also.  If I am making a roast and there is some leftover broth and meat, into the container it goes.  I have also added some limp celery and onion to this container.  You get the picture.   Add those scraps of vegetables, broth and meat that you would otherwise not know what to do with to this container.

When the container is full, I make vegetable soup.   I thaw the contents and dump it into a pot and survey how much “base” soup I have to work with.  I always keep canned broth on hand so if necessary I add 1 can of beef broth to this.  Water and bouillon or soup base can be used in place of the broth.  Then I squirt in some ketchup, around two tablespoons or the same amount of leftover tomato paste or tomato sauce.  Or if I have ketchup left in the bottom of a ketchup bottle, I add a little water and shake it up and pour it into the pot or into the freezer container.  This gives the soup a nice flavor.

Usually the container has enough leftover vegetables in it so I don’t have to add any to this mixture.  If there is not enough beef in the “base” mix, I add some frozen browned hamburger.

(Here’s another tip from my grandmother.  When browning hamburger for a recipe take out 2 tablespoons and put it in a container in the freezer.  You won’t miss that small amount of hamburger in a recipe and then you will have a container of browned hamburger for use in soup or pizza.)

To all of this I add 2 bay leaves and I let the concoction simmer slowly on the stove so the flavors can marry or I dump the frozen container with any other ingredients into my crockpot, set it on low and let it simmer all day.

The result – homemade and frugal vegetable beef soup.  This is the best tasting soup ever.  You will not be disappointed. I love this soup as I do not waste any vegetables and broth that in small amounts do not appear as something you would think of keeping, but put together can be transformed into a tasty soup. Having this container in my freezer is also very convenient.

I serve grilled cheese sandwiches or some dense crusty bread with this meal.  (I will have to share my bread recipe sometime.  It is easy and quicker than a bread machine.)

Pizza

Usually on the weekends I make pizza.  Pizza is another one of those foods that you can make as a way to use up some leftovers.

I stock up on shredded mozzarella cheese when it is on sale and I freeze it.  If I see Monterey Jack or Co-Jack cheese in the reduced display, I pick it up and shred it and freeze it.  I have never had any bad results with freezing shredded cheese.  Just let it thaw and then you can use it on pizza, quiche or a pasta dish.

As to toppings, I buy pepperoni on sale and freeze it if it is close to the expiration date.  Other meat toppings I use are:  ends of ham chopped up, pieces of salami, a few leftover strips of bacon, ground beef, ground breakfast sausage or for that matter little smokie sausage links, leftover grilled hamburgers, leftover chicken, leftover turkey, leftover pineapple and so on.  Any meat that is leftover from a meal that I can use on pizza, I freeze and label it for pizza.

One time I tried a new recipe using strips of chicken breast and it was awful.  I had all this leftover casserole and no one liked it.  I took the chicken out of the casserole and rinsed it off and the next evening I used it on pizza.  Nobody knew it was from the casserole from the night before.  I put a little dollop of barbecue sauce on top of the chicken before I put it in the oven and everyone loved it.

I use spaghetti sauce on pizza and I can usually get sauce for 4 large pizzas from 1 jar of spaghetti sauce.  Since I usually make 1 large pizza at a time, I freeze the rest of the sauce in amounts for one pizza.

I make my own pizza crust and it is one of those “a pinch of this and that” concoctions but I did measure the last time I made it so here are the ingredients.

2 tsp. active dry yeast – quick rise
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
flour

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.  Add the sugar and salt and stir to dissolve.  Let this mixture sit for a couple of minutes so that the yeast starts to foam a little.  I use my kitchen aid mixer and dough hook for mixing up the dough.  Place about 1 ½ cups of flour in the bowl and add the yeast mixture.  I let the mixer take over and mix it with the dough hook adding enough flour to make a soft dough.  The key here is a soft dough.  You don’t want your pizza dough to be stiff and hard.  Then empty the dough from the bowl onto a lightly floured surface and knead 10 times.  Then I take the dough and place it on a large greased pizza pan and form a circle, working it to the edges to form a nice edge crust.  As a side note, you don’t need a mixer to make this dough.  Just mix everything up in a bowl and then knead it.

Sometimes if string cheese is on sale at a good price I will buy it, cut it in half lengthwise and then place the string cheese on the edge and overlap the dough to cover the cheese.  This makes a stuffed crust.

Top the crust with the sauce, cheese and any other toppings.  Then, let the pizza rest or rise for about 15 minutes.  The finishing touch is to sprinkle some Italian seasoning over the pizza and bake it at 425 degrees for approximately 12 minutes.

I recently made a pizza and topped it with a mixture of mozzarella and cojack cheese.  I then cut up one leftover grilled hamburger and used 3 pieces of leftover bacon for the topping.

I can usually get the spaghetti sauce on sale for 75 cents a jar.  One 8 oz. package of shredded mozzarella is on sale about every two months for 99 cents.  I buy my yeast and flour in bulk.  The rest of the toppings are leftovers or purchased on sale.  I can easily make a pizza for $3.00 and under depending on the toppings.

When I am eating pizza I love to eat the main portion of the piece and leave the edge crust for last.  Then I dip the edge crust into honey and it is wonderful.

The best part is that my family prefers my homemade pizza to take out pizza.  I’ve made pizza so much that I can usually get it in the oven in about 25 minutes from start to finish.

Pizza and soup are great ways for using up leftovers.  As with everything, plan ahead for your leftovers and use them up.

If you have questions, e-mail me at info@oskynews.org.