Keeper of our Home

Apr. 17, 2008

Grocery Budgeting Part 6

Soup Making

You will have noticed that soup appears on our dinner menu 2x per week. This morning I made up a large pot 12 litres of chicken soup to split up in to meals for the freezer. I like to use chicken broth as my soup starter, and then add more ingredients after that.

When I cook up a chicken I save the bones and then transfer them to my crock pot, adding a little vinegar and cover right to the top with water. I leave it cooking on low overnight and this makes a yummy broth. This is usually enough broth to make 2 big lots of soup. I freeze the broth after it has cooled and been strained, and then bring it out when I need to make up soup again.

This morning's soup smelled good as it was simmering on the stove top. To the broth I added more water to reach the 12 litre mark, 2 packets of dry chicken noodle soup, extra noodles, finely chopped carrot, onion and celery, chicken stock powder, bay leaf, s and p, 2 cups shredded chicken meat. This should make enough for 6 meals for us, as this is a strong tasting soup which I can add a little more water to when split up.

I like to keep ready made soup in the freezer. It's so handy to have it there ready to use. The soup is cooling now, and later I'll divide it up and freeze to use over the next few weeks.

Other soups that I like to make are:

tomato
tomato and vegetable
pumpkin
split pea

These are our family favourite anyway! We like to use our home grown tomatoes for our soups as well, so that will explain why I have been busy stewing tomatoes of late for the freezer!

Most soups cost me about $2-3 to make and this makes 6 meals for us! So 40-50c per time! We like to eat freshly bakes scones or bread with our soups.This is one of our cheaper family dinners which helps to balance out the more expensive ones during the rest of the week.

Do you include soups as par of your dinner meal? It's well worth having one soup night per week. This would be about a $2 dinner for us ( not including dessert). I you count on spending $5-7 on your dinner meal, this will save you $5 per time. If you have a soup night once per week you'll save $5 per time x52 weeks=$260!! for the year.

I used to find soup making a lot of work, but now that I freeze broth and shredded cooked meat/chicken it makes it simple. It's well worth going to the extra effort and having these items ready in your freezer. If I had had to work from scratch today and make the broth, plus cook and shred the chicken I would not have done it! Setting aside some extra time in your kitchen work saves on other days. I usually try and do some of these extra things one day per week on my Kitchen Day- but I'll talk about that another time.

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I love being a stay at home mum with our six beautiful children from the Lord. Each day we strive to live faithfully for Him in thankfulness for His gift of full and free salvation.