How Make a Great Vegetable Soup from the Food Bank

Since a financial crisis is and has been affecting many more people now a days, I find it appropriate to help with a recipe that I have found to be excellent and straight from the food bank shelves.

As we all know, food banks usually only supply canned, boxed and bagged foods, and on occassion you may run into one or two that have some hot dogs, hams or turkeys, fruits and vegetables, and bread. If so, your menu is a little easier to plan, since you have a more wanted choice of foods. But if you are not so lucky here is a few ideas that you can do with your food bank items.

Canned vegetables is one of the favorites for donations at the food banks. And most people use vegetables as a side to their meats and pasta. But if there isn't a meat available and you are pretty much limited to a variety of vegetables, here is something you can try.

Vegetable Soup - For Lunch or Dinner

Depending on how much soup you want to make will decide on how many cans to open. For a family of 5, here is what I did:

* First open 3 cans each of green beans, corn, peas, sliced potatoes, and mixed vegetables.
* Empty all of the juices and dump into a large pot
* If you have 1 onion or 1 cabbage, slice up and put into pot
* Pour water into the pot about 2 inches above your vegetables
* Take a 2 cans of traditional spaghetti sauce - or two small cans of tomato paste and pour into the pot
* You can also add a can of stewed tomatoes if you like them
* Use a teaspoon of italian seasonings if you have it
* Sprinkle about 2 teaspoons of salt
* Sprinkle about 2 teaspoons of black pepper
* Sprinkle about 1/2 a teaspoon of garlic salt
* Stir and place on stove
* Cook until boiling and remove pot from stove

When you make yourself a bowl, taste for flavor. If you need to add a little something, try a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Now you have an excellent Vegetable Soup.

Breakfast Menus

Cereal is a staple of the food bank as well. If you are fortunate to get some breakfast sausage this would go well with some pancakes you might also receive from them.

Lunch Menus

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches, mac and cheese, and tuna sandwiches are a variety of things you can make with your food bank items as well.

Dinner Menus

These are a little harder to accomodate. Most dinners consist of a meat, and if you are one of the lucky ones that received some then you can try these menu items.

* Hamburgers and mac and cheese
* Hot dogs and pork n beans
* Tuna Helper
* Sausage and stuffing

Food Banks are not meant to keep you feed for weeks at a time. Most food bank items last a couple or a few days, enough time to get you by until you can get to the grocery store, or add to the items you could afford at the store. For those of you who need to use food banks, check every church, and community organization. Some have specific days and times you can come in, but usually there is a place to go through out the week. Remember, some places only let you come in so many times per week or month.