Grandmother used to call it "garbáge soup". She was a disturbingly cheap woman, not just frugal, but seriously cheap. If you took her to her choice of local restaurants, it would be the buffet, and she was not above putting extra food in her pocketbook.
"Learn from me!", she said. And my brother, bless him, said "learn what? How to be a thief?" ...I would not have said that, but it was true. She occasionally lacked normal moral senses.
Grandmother was not entirely senseless. I mean, giving her grandchildren toothbrushes as a present, as if they lacked them, was not really appreciated. It was perfectly sensible, though.
She definitely, oh yes, oh Lord, definitely grew up in a world where your idea of "poverty" probably looks like a pretty good vacation. She still left a surprising amount of money to her kids and gave it out to people she thought deserving, though. The funeral hall was packed when she died, and I would never have guessed. She was not exactly an overtly-kind woman. Not exactly.
The recipe? Oh, that. It's not called "garbáge soup" for no reason. You kind've start with this big canister that can go in the freezer. It collects absolutely everything that isn't bound for the compost pile or the junk heap. Everything.
Draining from cans. Any kind of cans. Scrape the cans and add a little water, everything goes in. The hard outer parts of onions or broccoli. Carrot tops, garlic bits, chicken skins, animal bones of any kind at all. Leftovers of any kind. Breadcrumbs? Oh certainly.
Did you know you can eat radish greens? Grandmother did. Those would not have gone in the soup stock.
You fill up a container or so of all this... extremely random stuff, and you put it in your biggest stockpot. You might add some water to cover. You might add a few splashes of vinegar, especially if there were bones in it.
Then you just simmer it for an hour or two. Or six. It wasn't really a great issue of time. More time if there were more bones and, you might want to put a lid on the cooker after an hour or so, although I like the incredibly flavorful concentrate that comes out of it. It has rough power in it. It is extremely robust. The flavor may be a surprise! ...you'll want a sieve-style colander to filter the residue.
You can use it for soup. I generally drink it as-is. But you will need to heat it, it turns into a solid in the refrigerator if you've done it right. (Depending on the ingredients, I'm sure. Mine are not likely to be purely vegetarian.)
Submitted September 13, 2016 at 07:09AM by MindfulPrudence http://ift.tt/2crsZrk Frugal
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