Lesson 2: No Sweat Big Batch Cooking
Soup: cheap, filling, usually healthy, usually fast. Soup can be made in large amounts to feed a lot of people or to be stretched out over time.
Canned soup: salty, mushy, tasteless.
Homemade soup can be seasoned just to your own taste. It can be made with leftovers and the stuff in your fridge that's about to go bad. It can be frozen. You can add more stuff to it throughout the week so you're never eating the same soup twice from a big batch.
Soup is easy. Saute some aromatics (the mirepoix or trinity in your freezer is perfect for this), add liquid, add your filler ingredients, and season. Simmer for a few minutes. Done. See? Easy. Add a salad and some bread and you have a filling, nourishing meal.
This is by no means complete, but here's a simple place to start if you want to come up with your own quick soup. Choose something from each column, heat, and serve.
| Liquid | Protein | Carb | Veggies | ||||||||||
| Chicken broth | cooked chicken | cooked rice | frozen mixed vegetables | ||||||||||
| Turkey broth | cooked turkey | cooked pasta | diced tomato | ||||||||||
| Beef broth | cooked pork | tortellini | cubed potato | ||||||||||
| Fish stock | cooked steak | quinoa | diced squash | ||||||||||
| Tomato juice/V8 | fish | barley | green beans | ||||||||||
| Vegetable stock | shrimp | peas | |||||||||||
| beans | spinach | ||||||||||||
| cooked ground beef | shredded cabbage | ||||||||||||
| tofu | diced onion | ||||||||||||
| seitan |
Your homework:
If you have a can of soup in your pantry, turn it around and read the ingredients list and nutrition facts. Now put it in that bag of crap in your basement. Plan one night this week where you will make soup.
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