People Are Lapping Up This Yucky 'Garbage Soup' To Save Money

[FarCenter]

A big bowl of “garbage soup” plus crackers or bread makes a super-frugal supper. Don’t have the recipe? Neither do I, because it’s different every time.

The basic premise: Over a period of weeks or months, you toss any leftover bits of veggies, meat, poultry, rice, mashed potatoes, or gravy into a bowl or bag in the freezer.

And it certainly keeps your dinner partners guessing. By definition, each batch is unique. It can never taste the same way twice because its ingredients vary so widely.

Here’s how you work with potage de garbage: Pour some stock (homemade or canned) and seasonings into a pan, with some canned tomatoes if you like. Simmer for 15 or 20 minutes, then add the contents of the freezer bag. Heat thoroughly and adjust the seasoning.

Dinner is served.

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-makes-up-garbage-soup-2012-6

[lunatica]

1. I call it mustgo meals

Throw in all the ingredients that must go out of refrigerator or they'll go bad.

Some of the most delicious meals I've had are mustgo meals. My son is a veritable chef of mustgo.

[FarCenter]

8. Accumulating the leftovers in the freezer seems safer

In the refrigerator they tend to become green and fuzzy.

[lunatica]

18. We catch ours before they get fuzzy and stuff

[tsuki]

97. I call it Cream of Leftovers. nt

[NightWatcher]

2. We never called it garbage. It's leftover soup, and we had it often

And here's a shocker.... It was good.

I guess I never saw being raised poor as garbage. You just do what you gotta do to survive.

[MNBrewer]

33. It's exactly how my mom made soup when i was growing up

and it was better in terms of flavor and nutrition than any canned soup could ever be.

[Tsiyu]

64. This

Modern people kill me!

They will happily call soup some HFC concoction with god-only-knows-what-part-of-the-chicken-that-is bits, a tablespoon of actual vegetables, ingredients no one can pronounce, and a lot of salt, canned by strangers in a roach and rat-infested plant.

See, I call that garbage.


(But they have better commercials.)

[Akoto]

3. I don't get what's 'yucky' about it.

It seems like a fairly sensible concept to me. So long as the ingredients are kept in a safe, sanitary fashion until use, what's the harm?

[Luminous Animal]

7. I don't get it, either. Or why it is called "garbage".

[MattBaggins]

34. I take the carcass from my roasted chickens

and put them in the freezer for making soup later on. I do the same with freezing celery and what not that might go bad. I also take herbs, chop them up, wet and freeze them in ice cube trays to pop into dishes.

I just described the same concept without using loaded words like garbage.

On a side note about celery. I can not understand why people throw the leafy middle part away. The first thing I do is grab that yummy leafy middle part. Am I alone in this practice?

[Tsiyu]

65. You are not alone

I like the leaves for soup and stock. Or chopped in salad - any kind.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

79. Hell, I always do that. Turky carcass is my favorite.

I throw it in a pot and boil it till all the meat falls off and then use the stock to make soup. I'm not poor, I don't do it because I'm frugal, I do it cause it makes great soup or beans or whatever.

[MatthewStLouis]

91. Turkey Frame Soup is delicious!

[xxqqqzme]

87. Nope, my favorite part too.

I recently made a pasta salad w/ all the leafy bits tossed in the mix.


And I take all the veggie trimmings, toss them in the freezer an use them to make vegetable stock by simmering them down. What is left after straining the stock goes to the compost.

I love making soup. A bowl of soup w/ a slice or two of my home made oatmeal bread....I wish the weather was cold, I'd make soup tomorrow.

[Honeycombe8]

40. Sounds healthy to me. "Yucky" is more like the fried butter at the Dallas State Fair. nt

[Odin2005]

72. It's something "those proles" do.

Look at the source, this is a "lets make fun of poor people" article. aimed at well-off folks

[drm604]

4. Sounds like a good idea.

Cheap, filling, and nutritious.

[NYC Liberal]

5. Why is using leftovers yucky?

Sure, it is if you use food that's months old and has gone bad. But otherwise, why not?

[msongs]

6. been there done that and it can taste yummy :-) nt

[Wait Wut]

9. Wasn't this sorta how...

...Chop Suey came about? I was very young when my dad told me the story, but apparently Chinese restaurant workers would save all the pieces and stir fry them together. They couldn't afford to eat what was actually served.

[Voice for Peace]

10. Maybe it's called garbage soup

because it's from Business Insider, and maybe business insiders don't eat leftovers.

[OKNancy]

11. My family calls it "refrigerator stew"

[toddwv]

12. Why do you make it seem bad?

The right seasonings and it's not much different than any other stew?

Sounds like a great idea since we as a country toss out billions in wasted food.

[Cali_Democrat]

15. Let's be honest here

It's entirely possible that the combination of leftovers could result in something disgusting.

[malthaussen]

13. And this is different from gumbo how?

"What goes into a good gumbo?"
"Everything!"

-- Mal

[AsahinaKimi]

14. Not sure why they call it "Garbage" either ..

its not like you are dumpster diving .. Its all food you have bought and used, and had left over. I do that all the time. I always have packets of Miso or those packets from RAMEN left over to use as flavoring. There was one point when I totally ran out of food and had to use ketchup packets, and soy sauce packets to make a soup.


I never throw out left overs.. I simply find a way to store them and use them again within the next couple of days. In this economy only an idiot would throw out left overs, you know like .. rich Republicans.

[notadmblnd]

28. I don;t toss leftovers either

a lady I work for recently gave me two huge slabs of fresh salmon. It had to have been 10 lbs. She was going to throw it out. I took it home, divided it in portions and now have enough salmon to last for a couple of months. I know I'd never spend 100.00 on a 10lbs bag of salmon.

[MattBaggins]

36. The link is from business insider

The concept of leftovers is most likely a quaint notion to them.

[Blue_Tires]

90. that was my thought as well...

[Aerows]

16. I've made some great leftover soup

It's simple, economical, and often comes out fantastic. I am not too proud to eat leftovers and leftover soup even in the good times.

[Retrograde]

17. I don't know about the mashed potatoes

The texture seems off for a soup - but mix with eggs and maybe bread crumbs and they make passable potato pancakes.

Otherwise, it seems like just another lunch chez Retrograde: we particularly like using small bits of leftover meats and veggies in ramen. They'll also do for pizza toppings.

I don't see what's yucky about it: it's not like the ingredients were scraped out of the garbage can. It's how our peasant grandmothers around the world and through the centuries cooked.

[magical thyme]

19. mash potatoes are fine

in a cream-based soup. Eg, cream of mushroom, cream of potato, cream of tomato, cream of leftovers...

[GoCubsGo]

46. Vichyssoise

It's essentially cold mashed potatoes with leeks and broth. I doubt the snob who wrote it this article would know the difference between vichyssoise from scratch and "garbage" potato soup.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

56. No, but the dumbass will pay $9 for a cup of it at Coeur de Lion.

Soup du Jour
The Chef’s daily creation
$9.00

With "Chef's daily creation" meaning "whatever is leftover from the day before," including potatoes and leeks!

[WorseBeforeBetter]

21. I actually made soup out of leftover Shepherd's Pie...

that had been frozen, and it was surprisingly good. I wouldn't have served it at a dinner party, but it suited me just fine for a day or two. Who knew I was eating garbage?

[Luminous Animal]

32. I make Shepherd Pie with leftover thanksgiving dinner and freeze it!

[WorseBeforeBetter]

49. Now that *does* sound yucky.

Kidding... still can't believe how dumb this article is!

[AsahinaKimi]

51. The other day I bought this incredible

Clam Chowder. (New England style.) I couldn't finish it so I put the container back in the fridge. Tonight I steamed a Potato. I also reheated the Clam chowder in the steamer, added a touch of real butter and let it melt. Later I just poured the chowder over the broken up potato. It was amazingly delicious!

[WorseBeforeBetter]

57. Mmm, that sounds yummy...

sort of a twist on chowder in a sourdough bowl. Soup and starch!

[Luminous Animal]

23. Mashed potatoes will thicken the broth and you'll end up with stew.

[xmas74]

60. Mashed potatoes work great as a thickener.

Think of cream soups as a great place to add a bit of mashed potato. A hearty, heavy stew could also be served over a bit of mashed potato-place in bottom of bowl and add stew. It thickens up the stew and allows the stew to act more like a gravy.

[Marrah_G]

69. mashed potatoes is a great thickener for chowder :)

[wandy]

82. Leftover mashed potatos have only one use in life.. POTATO PANCAKES....

Like you said mix with eggs, maybe some bread crumbs, what else do you do with leftover bread but make bread crumbs.
If you want to get fancy, toss a can of creamed corn into the batter.
Yes I know potato pancakes are best made with fresh riced potatos.
But ricing potatos requires effort.
Leftover mashed potatos just seem to occur naturally.

[slackmaster]

20. I know people who have been using that term for decades

Leftover stew is nothing new.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

22. Not unlike Minestrone...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minestrone

Like many Italian dishes, minestrone was probably originally not a dish made for its own sake, like for example the ancient Roman green onion soup "Patella Lucretiana", or Lucrezio's dish, though this point is argued.[by whom?] In other words, whereas one might set about gathering green onions, anchovies, herring sauce and honey, as called for by the recipe for Lucrezio's green onion soup, one did not gather the ingredients of minestrone with the intention of making minestrone, as evidenced by the fact the name "minestrone" did not appear until the 14th century (see Etymology). The ingredients were pooled from ingredients for other dishes, often side dishes or "contorni" plus whatever was left over, rather like the "pulte".

[TwilightGardener]

24. Gross. Some stuff just doesn't belong in a soup or stew. I don't want to encounter

leftover odd chunks of meat with, say, leftover cheesy broccoli, leftover sweet potato fries, etc. together mushed up in some broth. Why not just eat the stupid leftovers as they are? Or just buy broth, rice and a can of veggies if you want soup. If you are able to combine various bits and pieces of prior meals together like that, you must be preparing all your food steamed or boiled, with no seasonings, sauces or breadings.

[Lars39]

27. A frittata would also welcome leftovers.

[Luminous Animal]

31. It would depend on how a person eats... nearly all of the food that I cooked this week would

go great together... most were grilled as we tend to grill with our neighbors several times a week:

Asparagus with olive oil, lemon, & lemon zest.
Slow cooked onions with olive oil & balsamic
Portabela mushrooms with olive oil and a dash of soy sauce
Corn on the cob
Red bell peppers, peeled and sliced and mixed with green onions and caraway seeds
Beer can chicken
Roasted potatoes with paprika
We also made a wonderful remoulade sauce (for oyster po boys) that would go great in the soup.

Add a little rice and it would be delicious.

[Retrograde]

43. That's where experience comes in

Spend enough years cooking and experimenting and you start to get a feel for what does and does not go together. You also learn to taste as you go along and make alterations as needed. Cheesy broccoli and meat scraps? Make a broth with the meat, add the cheesy broccoli and maybe some more cheese for a broccoli cheese soup. The sweet potatoes? Probably not in the same dish with the broccoli, but with same broth and a handful of carrots they might make for an interesting soup.

When you cook a lot you find you tend to use certain herbs and spices more than others, which is also going to help with combining. My best never-to-be-duplicated chili was made from some leftover ribs which turned out too dry and leftover baked beans. The spicy rub on the ribs complemented the sweetness of the baked beans: with some additional dry chiles and some vinegar to offset the sweetness it turned out great.

[Lars39]

59. I freeze baked beans and then add them to chili, too.

They don't freeze well as baked beans, but they make a great addition to chili.

[davsand]

63. The sweet potatoes work well with carrots in broth with a curry.

Heat it up and put it in the food processor. Finish with a bit of cream if you like. The sweet potatoes thicken it just like white potatoes thicken other soups and stews.

Last night I did a cold bean soup using leftover refried beans and a can of black soybeans. I put in some beef broth, tomatoes and onions and a lot of chili powder and cumin. Whizzed that all up in the blender and served it with a drizzle of sour cream and a bunch more diced tomatoes and onions as a garnish. Not bad.

I find that the leftover meats are not nearly as much of an issue for me to get used up but the produce is. I really have to think about how to get some of it turned into meals before it goes bad. I finally came to the realization that pretty much anything I can think of works just fine when cooked in a broth and whizzed in the blender or food processor. Instant soup minus all the salt and chemicals!!!



Laura

[Codeine]

25. OMG!! People are doing creative stuff with leftovers!

Why waste perfectly edible food? Why is "leftovers" a dirty word these days?

[grilled onions]

26. A Budget Veggie Soup

It was a bonus to find meat or poultry in it too. As for the mashed spuds leftover fried spuds will work well(mashed often turned it into a thickener). A handful of rice,noodles etc was also added if available or if company was comin'! The basic broth of decades ago was made with veggie scraps anyhow from the skins of onions to the tops or bottoms of celery. At that time many grew their own, non sprayed veggies so they knew it was safe. The onion skins also added color. SO does a "grab" of spinach or other greens.

[MattBaggins]

37. So few people know about using the onions skins

It's what gives real chicken broth color and flavor.

[Luminous Animal]

77. Onion skins, onions, and chicken feet... the best chicken broth.

[Blue_In_AK]

29. There's nothing wrong with this.

Why waste leftovers?

[Warpy]

30. I call it "clean out the fridge soup"

and it's an offshoot of Mulligan Stew that has sustained tramps for decades, bits of this and that gleaned from garbage cans and kind people giving handouts, mixed into tin cans and boiled over a campfire. Yum.

Garbage soup is usually pretty good unless it combines duck a l'orange and garlicky spaghetti sauce with peppers. Then it actually does taste like garbage. Orange peels, garlic and peppers do not play well together.

[kestrel91316]

35. Nothing yucky about it if you keep your leftovers frozen until use.

I suppose 1%ers would consider it beneath their dignity, but the hoi polloi are wise to do this and NOT WASTE FOOD.

[yawnmaster]

38. What is yucky about it?? Is it better to just throw food away?...

and this is a great way to save money!
In addition to stew and soup, depending on the ingredients, one can also stir fry the leftovers with some added noodles.

It's a great and often delicious way not to waste.

[Enrique]

39. it depends what they mean by "leftover bits"

if people are scraping their plates into the bag after dinner, then it's yucky. But I don't think that's what they mean.

[Arkansas Granny]

41. We always called this refrigerator soup and it was quite tasty. It was not yucky!

[REP]

42. It's called "cooking"

Leftover rice, beans and mole get topped with a fried egg and wrapped in a tortilla. My husband LOVES them.

Chicken bones and skin are frozen to be used to make stock. If I have celery bottoms, the go in the stock.

Usually don't have leftover vegetables for long because they get eaten.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

80. +1

[wandy]

83. +1 on the chicken bones.............

That turkey carkes or ham bone can be wrapped up and set in the freaser until you feel like making soup.
Looking in the crisper, you're likley to find some celery or carrots you almost forgot about about.
Wooo Huuuu! kind of like free dinner.

[XemaSab]

44. I call it "BOF" stew

From all the veggies left at the bottom of the vegetable bins.

[GoCubsGo]

45. When did leftovers become "garbage"?

I suppose if you are wealthy and can afford to throw out/waste what you don't use right away, it' "garbage". Spoiled assholes.

[Auntie Bush]

47. Isn't this how our ancesters ate? A pot of this was probably always on the stove.

They probably called it stew.

[LeftyMom]

48. Yeah, that's pretty much how every cook ever makes stock.

This is not news.

[Starry Messenger]

50. How nice of BInsider to look up from filet mignon long enough to notice how the peasants are faring.

[arcane1]

52. Hell, that's what I call "dinner" a few times a month

Yum!

[PoliticAverse]

53. I prefer 'stone soup' - I can get stones for free... n/t

[libinnyandia]

54. That was my first reaction. Start with stones and toss in whatever you've got to add a little

flavor.

[FloridaJudy]

94. We called it "Stone Soup" as well

From a Russian folk tale in which a canny drifter provided the stone, and the entire village threw in their left-overs.

Peasants have been making this for centuries.

[Ian David]

55. My mom called it Kitchen Sink Casserole.

Because it had everything but the kitchen sink.

[crunch60]

58. My Mom called it Slum Gullian soup.

[Generic Brad]

61. I lap it up because it tastes great

Money is not my primary consideration when making soup.

[xmas74]

62. Tamar Adler

encourages the use of all leftovers in her book An Everlasting Feast. She doesn't believe in throwing away anything, including veggie peels and onion skins, cheese rinds, etc.

[EFerrari]

67. This article sounds like a 12 year old wrote it after being denied pizza money.

lol

[xmas74]

68. I thought it was insane.

We grew up on leftovers and the "in" thing right now is frugal cooking. I'd never have thought that someone would write something as dumb as this article.

[Tsiyu]

66. The poorer everyone else grows

the more the Haves love to mock us.

Their money does not buy them any common sense.

[Monk06]

70. I keep a 2 gallon stock pot on my stove and put all my meat and vegetable leftover in it.

I reduce it for two hours every night while preparing my evening meal using some
of the stock for reductions. At the end of the meal the stock goes into the freezer
and I bring it out the next night and repeat. After a month or two or when the broth
gets half full of solids I mash and strain the broth and freeze it. Then start off with a
new batch.

That's not garbage It's traditional country cooking.

[Luminous Animal]

75. Yep. It's not garbage. It is food.

[Odin2005]

71. Uh, I thought this was completely normal. But I am from a working class family.

The Upper-Middle Class twits must think left-overs are below them.

The irony is that the world's great cuisines have their origins in poor folks being creative with what little they had.

[wandy]

86. Oden, you are most correct. The upper class do feel that leftovers are below them......

Listen.
I had one of those jobs where frequently I didn't need a house or a stove or a fridge or my own bed for that matter.
A motel 6 gold card and a lifetime pass at MickeyDees were more the way of things.
The occasional hunt for leftovers is a joy.
And it gets better.
Soon their will be stuff in the garden.

The irony is that the world's great cuisines have their origins in poor folks being creative with what little they had.

My grandmother used to give us kids a roll of fresh bread and turn us loose in the back yard to forage.
I know how to bake bread.
Soon their will be stuff in the garden.

[Texasgal]

73. My grandfather called it his

Famous "everything soup". It was damn good too!

[NYC_SKP]

74. Sustainable and tasty, what's not to love?

[HiPointDem]

76. This is the ruling class's idea of helpful hints for the proles. In lieu of jobs, stupid

tips about how to save money that most normal people already know except for the clueless & wasteful ruling class.

[Scootaloo]

78. Leftovers? What are those?

Okay, okay... I'm a single guy, and I make a living as a cook, so I know how to portion for myself.

Yeah, I grew up on leftovers, man. leftovers and subsistence. You never think you'll get sick of king salmon until it's all you eat for five months straight.

[pansypoo53219]

81. no thank you. my real soups to good.

try not to freeze any leftovers w/ go in to die there.

[Zalatix]

84. Welcome to extreme poverty gourmet.

[wandy]

85. Or sometimes called 'end of the garden' soup....

This will be the night of the first real frost. Anything not brought in will go to waist so........
Almost ripe tomatoes go between two sheets of news paper. They will ripen just fine.
Green tomatoes go in curry or chutney.
Peppers can be frozen or hung in the attic to dry, later to become Italian potato chips......
Dried peppers flash fried in olive oil using a cast iron skillet.
Anything else like corn, zukiney, brussels sprouts, spinich, carrots go in the crock pot.
I'm not a vegetarian but who says soup must have meat.

[datasuspect]

88. Mulligan Stew

famous at the hobo camp

[GeorgeGist]

89. Serving Suggestion

[NickB79]

92. Sounds like my dad's cooking, or as I call it: Adult baby food

Only he throws everything into a pressure cooker and turns that stuff to mush.

Imagine this treat: butternut squash, cayenne peppers, year-old frozen cherry tomatoes from the bottom of the freezer, sweet corn, and a big old chuck of beef liver. Oh, and it's all homegrown on the farm.

He started cooking like this after the divorce, and he's never been healthier!

[LynneSin]

93. We use to do that at Girl Scout day camp

There was always one day that we had 'Surprise Soup' which was made by combining all the different cans of soup each of the girls would bring to camp that day.

So each year I went to this camp it was guarenteed that I would starve at least one day because they would serve us this nastyassshit soup made up of all the ramdom soups we would bring in. I would always bring either a can of Chicken Noodle or Tomato soup because that's the only soups I liked but you always had one girl bring in something really nasty like cream of baked beans or some other bad nasty soup.

But by the 4th year of going to this camp I finally wised up. The good thing is that the soup was only those cans brought in from your group and each group was made up of about 20 girls. So the 4th year I worked it with my group that everyone was to bring in a variety of Chicken Noodle soup. All but one girl listened and the one that didn't well we hid her can of soup so it wouldn't be used.

[PamKlaus]

95. Nice OP, Marie-Antoinette.

[Liberal_in_LA]

96. lol