Too-Many-Vegetables Soup

Yesterday I realized that we had way too many vegetables around that were going to start being too old any day. So I decided to make a big pot of veggie soup using whatever we had around.

Ingredients:
1/2 small red onion
1 large white onion
4 small carrots
2 leeks (bulb and lower leaf portion)
1 medium zucchini
2 big white mushrooms
1 c shredded cabbage
1/4 c parsley, chopped
2 cloves garlic
2 T balsamic vinegar
1.5 T olive oil
Salt to taste
A little soy sauce or fish sauce (about 1 t)
1 bay leaf
Water to fill the pot

Method:
Warm the oil in your soup pot. Slice the onions into half rings, add them to the pot and let them saute. Peel and grate the carrots, cut the leeks into half rings, and add them to the pot as well. Salt the vegetables and let them saute. Now add water to fill the pot almost full, and turn the heat up to bring the soup to a boil. Add chopped zucchini, chopped mushrooms, shredded cabbage and garlic. Put in the seasonings: bay leaf, balsamic vinegar, soy or fish sauce, salt and parsley. Add them to your taste. Let the soup simmer until the cabbage and zucchini are soft enough for you.

Notes: I was surprised how good this was. I mean, I was kind of begrudgingly making it, thinking I was basically cleaning out my fridge, and that it wasn't going to taste that great because there was just water, no meat based broth or long-cooking-full-of-goodness vegetable broth. But it turns out it doesn't take a lot of time for the veggies to flavor the water. It only took about 25 minutes or so total. Of course you can use whatever veggies you have around, but I think that the leeks and mushrooms made this especially tasty.

Serving Suggestion: Good with a piece of bread. My boyfriend put leftover roasted chicken meat in his bowl, and he liked it.

Cheap but Good: Getting Experimental with Pasta Sauces

Even though it definitely falls under the category of "cheap but good," I don't cook a lot of pasta, and not a lot of pasta sauce either. Not because I can't whip up something tasty, but because it's my boyfriend's "job." We have this sort of unspoken understanding that there are certain things that he cooks. Here's the list: fried eggs, mashed potatoes, pasta and associated sauces, pork. There are things that are "mine", too: soups, anything else done with eggs, beef, Indian food. Often I branch out and try to cook things that aren't on my list, but he knows what he is good at and sticks to it. I can honestly say that he does everything on his list much, much better than I do, even though I have more cooking experience.

Part of why his pasta sauces end up better than mine comes from his willingness to throw in everything but the kitchen sink. I tend to take a more cautious approach, selecting a few ingredients that I know will go well together. My result is always good, but strangely enough his is too. I keep waiting for one of his random sauces to fail and it hasn't happened yet.

His approach to making pasta sauce leads to a highly economical and tasty dinner, because what he does is take various odds and ends from the fridge--that may not have otherwise been used--and incorporates them into our meal. A few artichoke hearts left in a jar, likewise for some lonely green olives, the last splash of wine from the bottle on the table, the last tablespoon of cream in the tub, mixed with parsley that's just starting to wilt and that bacon that'll go bad if we don't use it the next couple of days. He usually throws in a dash of a couple spices too; sometimes unusual things, like cumin or coriander.

All these odds and ends combined with a can of diced tomatoes (or when we have them, a chopped fresh one) make a huge panful of sauce that we eat with whatever dried pasta we have on hand. All it needs is a tiny sprinkling of grated parmesan cheese to be perfect.

Cheap but Good: Tuna Salad with Rice and Corn

This is a really tasty salad, and it's very filling, too. I use tuna packed in oil, because I ALWAYS use tuna packed in oil. I find it much more flavorful.

Tuna Salad with Rice and Corn

Ingredients:

1 can of tuna packed in oil, 160 gram can
1 can of corn, 300 gram can
2 cups of cooked white rice (I prefer long grain)
2 hard boiled eggs
Salt and Pepper

Method:

The rice should not be hot, warm is fine, or room temperature. Cold is fine too, but I prefer it warm or room temp. This is a perfect use for leftover rice! Combine the rice with the (drained) corn and the (undrained) tuna. I guess if you're really watching your fat grams or whatever you could toss the oil from the tuna, but it seems like such a waste! :-) Roughly chop the hard cooked eggs and add them to the bowl. Stir everything together well, salt and pepper to taste.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: You can also add chopped fresh herbs, or dried ones, like parsley or dill. I hear thyme is tasty with corn. I don't eat a whole lot, so for me a small plateful of this is a complete dinner. If you're compelled to have something green in there, I'd stir in some peas or some baby spinach (that sounds really good). My boyfriend also considers this as a complete meal, but he needs about 3 times more than I do, and he *always* has to have bread. With anything. :-)

****Cost and Nutritional Analysis coming soon!!!!!****