Wednesday 25 January 2012

S-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g- the pennies.......


The other day I posted about spending the pennies, well it's no good just spending the pennies willy nilly, you have to also stretch them as far as you possibly can. With this in mind most weeks on a Monday I make a huge pan of vegetable soup, using a cupful of basic dried soup mix (lentils, split peas, little bits of pasta etc)  from my giant jar and usually whatever is lurking in the bottom of the fridge after the weekend.


Still available here at 99p for 4.

This week we had been given some lovely young leeks by our friend after Lovely Hubby delivered a trailer load of compost to her allotment, so I used half of these, thus saving me having to use one our last few homegrown onions.  I had the last three of our carrots grown in the tyres outside the back door and I added a single stick of celery from my slowly diminishing bunch in the fridge (it's four weeks old now and still going strong!) there is also the stem of a bunch of Broccoli that I used up last week in a pasta dish so that got chopped up and thrown in too.  I put plenty of water in to cover all the veggies, a couple of spoonfuls of veggie stock and lots of bits and pieces from the spice/herb rack, by not measuring things out too much the taste varies each time and we never get bored with it.

After bringing it to the boil on the top of the Aga it was popped into the slow oven to gently cook for a few hours.  We had a large bowlful each for tea on Monday with a freshly reheated baguette to dunk in and the rest was left to cool and popped into the fridge.  What's left gets used for lunches for LH to take to work or for me to have a bowlful at home.  None of it is wasted and sometimes halfway through the week I will add to it with vegetable water or more leftover veggies making it last even longer.

We only warm up the bit we are eating so as not to keep reheating the entire pan full each time, much healthier and it saves on electricity (I reheat in the microwave, usually in the bowl I will be eating out of to save on washing up), LH heats his up in his lidded plastic bowl that he takes to work each day.

At a guess the whole pan full costs less than a pound to make and it serves us about eight or so meals, so very penny stretching.



The packing is going well with areas suddenly appearing very bare all over the house.  All our pictures are remaining on the walls until we have decorated the new house and then we will literally take them down here and put them straight up there.  We are hoping to have the whole house set up and ready to live in before we move, I'll let you know how that works out!

Sue xx

11 comments:

  1. ummm your soup sounds good & has inspired me to make my own !
    Leaving the pictures to the end seems a very good idea to me ( mine grow cobwebs behind them ! )

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  2. The bareness is the weirdest part! We hosted four men when we were in Fife in 2000 - they had come to watch the Open at St Andrews and we had registered with the Tourist Board to do B&B for the week. Months after we set all that up, we managed to sell the house, with the moving date set for the week after the Open, so there were places that looked very bare where bookcases had been stripped, and paintings packed, etc but the chaps didn't seem to mind! They had come to watch the golf, not look at our decor, after all!
    Hope it all goes well xx

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  3. There is nothing better than homemade soup.You have inspired me to go make some just now for tonight!

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  4. soup mix is on my shopping list for this week, as I have both half a turkey carcass and a ham bone in the freezer crying out to be made into two pans of soup,

    Gill in Canada

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  5. I always do the same thing with soup, especially adding veg water as it progresses through the week!
    The taste just gets better and better and it also means there's something hearty to serve when a friend drops in unexpectedly
    xx

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  6. Hubby says I can stretch a dollar so far he can hear it screaming!
    Jane xx
    Still no animal post, Sue...(!!)

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  7. Ooops...no animal for Jane...tomorrow.... I PROMISE!!

    Sue xx

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  8. Mmm lovely - been back to work today, so it'll be a bowl of pasta (also on offer at the same place Sue) x

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  9. The soup sounds lovely. Now I'll want to make some too!
    Hope you move goes smoothly. Susan.

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  10. Never heard of soup mix, will have to look it up.

    Great money saving Sue!

    Sft x

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