Quick, Cheap and Tasty Soup

In these times of rocketing food and fuel prices I'm finding myself trying to cut back on my household spending and have come up with the following 'soup solution'.

I'm a freelance home typist and, as such, my income can fluctuate drastically. Apart from recycling everything possible and starting to grow my own organic vegetables, I have recently taken a long look at my grocery bill. Unfortunately, due to the nature of my work, I often don't have time to make complete meals from scratch but I have come up with some cheap and cheerful alternatives to the expensive, additive laden soups we buy in cans.

If the weather was a bit on the chilly side, I often opened up a can of soup for my lunch but I now rarely buy canned soup as I find it's just as easy and almost as quick to make my own. My experimentation began when I really fancied a bowl of tomato soup but had run out of cans. I did however have cans of plum tomatoes in the cupboard (less than half the price of my favourite brand of tomato soup!) so I heated up the tomatoes in a pan, gave them a good pummel with a wooden spoon, added some seasoning and herbs (mainly basil and oregano), thickened it up with cornflour and milk and Bob's your uncle! Alternatively, after giving your tomatoes a good bashing and thickening them up, try adding a spoonful of pesto. I've even heated up slightly mushy sweet peppers into the mix, but I'd advise you to take the skin off the peppers first ... unless you need the extra fibre in your diet!!

Recently I was clearing out my fridge and came across some sad looking celery. Not wanting to waste it, I boiled it up in about a half a pint of water until it was soft, again thickened it up with cornflour and milk, added some salt and pepper and a bit of dried parsley, and found it delicious. Equally, I've found that you can use mushrooms, onion, leak, celeriac, potato or parsnip. You just need to boil until soft (or use leftovers from the fridge), pulverise with a wooden spoon and add your thickening and seasoning. Obviously you can use a combination of the vegetables and you can always add cooked chicken or fish that you've got hanging around that needs eating.

I also make my own lentil soup. Crumble a chicken or vegetable stock cube into some hot water, add some lentils and cooked carrot, boil up, season to taste and enjoy!! I normally use bacon stock for this, preferring to boil my own ham rather than buy the more artificial pre-packed ham which is full of water and has no flavour.

Basically, you can use just about any leftover meat, fish and vegetable combinations - just add stock, seasoning and thickening!! It's quick and easy (no major cooking skills required), cheap and far healthier than tinned soup which tends to have loads of additives.

So go get those wooden spoons and take out the day's frustrations by pummelling a potato or tormenting a tomato!!