Hello!

Sorry it’s been a while. I’ve been grad-student-ing, and I haven’t had time to really keep track of stuff or discover new recipes or things like that and write them down. But I did discover / make a tasty soup the other day. I’m not entirely sure how much it cost, but I’m sharing the basic recipe.

The broth

This is something that can be used for basically any soup variation you can think of. I use the Chicken Better than Bullion stuff. I made about 6 cups of broth, so 2 heaping tablespoons of the Chicken Stuff, and six cups of water, on the stove. (I used the heaping measures, since I knew I was adding liquidyish stuff to the broth that would dilute the original.)

To that, I added about a can of tomato paste. (What can I say? I really like tomato!) An alternative is a can of stewed tomatoes. Or you could do both.

Note: I added a bit of salt to this broth. That’s in part because I really like salt, and because I was using the low-sodium Chicken Stuff.

Boil this in a soup pot. Or start to heat it and add the other stuff while it’s heating.

The seasonings and “stuff”

Seasoning: What I did the other day was I added parsley, basil, and some ground clove. It worked well.

Stuff:

• Vegetables
• 1 C Rice
• 1 can of beans (Drained, rinsed. I used black beans.)

For vegetables, I used what I had on hand. I think that included an onion, a zucchini, a couple large sticks of celery, and a few handfuls of baby carrots. This is super flexible, though. And be aware that your onions will probably end up really mushy if you boil them for a while and cut them too fine.

After it boiled, I turned the heat down and let it simmer for as long as the rice was supposed to cook, stirring at random intervals. I actually put the rice in early on, and then added the vegetables as I was done chopping them. (Harder veggies, like carrots, went in first. Then the others. Really, though, those are extremely flexible if you don’t mind mushy vegetables.)

“Garnish”

When I had the soup, I just sprinkled some white cheese on top. Ok, so I actually put a handful of shredded mozzarella, a cut-up babybell, and a torn string cheese at the bottom of a bowl, reheated the soup to about boiling, and then spooned the soup over the cheese.

I like cheese.

Other options that would have been great to include would be chicken. Or chicken with cheese. (Given that I used clove, the white cheese worked better than cheddar would have.)

So, yeah. I think that was a generally inexpensive recipe, and it lasted me for a week of lunches. I hope you enjoy!