Simple meal for hard times

[1911'S 4 Me]

Try mixing in a can of Rotel, your preference into your mac & cheese.

I forgot about Rotel. I use it in almost everything.
Rotel and Pace Picante Sauce in pintos.

 

[Axxe55]

When we buy a ham, we specifically get one with the bone in it. Two reasons. First, a bone in ham many times is cheaper in cost. Two, we save the ham bone to cook with pinto beans or butter-beans. A smoked ham bone adds great flavor to beans when cooked in crock pot.

 

[Patience0830]

I make what I call "Dump Soup" in a 9-quart cast iron pot

1 6 ounce boneless chicken breast cubed - I will cut the chicken breast into about 3/8 in square pieces
Sear the cubed chicken in vegetable oil, lard, or in today's instance (I kept the bacon grease from this mornings breakfast) season to taste by adding garlic, black pepper (I prefer coarse ground), and onion, I add a lot cause I like the flavor.

5 teaspoons chicken broth base
2 cans red beans (additional protein)
1 can whole kernel corn
2 cans of sweet peas

(DO NOT DRAIN THE CANNED VEGGIES EVERYTHING GOES IN)

1 hot banana pepper
2 tablespoons fresh arugula

I had homegrown zucchini in the freezer, potatoes (diced) and 1 quart of tomatoes I canned

(Added this with EDIT)
This is even better if you add celery and some green pepper or fresh carrots, I just did not have any and I could not justify making that 34 mile round trip drive to go to the grocery store.
(End EDIT)

(2nd Edit)
Skip the chicken and use some good pork, pork and beef, or venison sausage. This is tasty also!
(End 2nd Edit

Add anything you want, pintos work in place of the red beans, tomato sauce or diced tomatoes will work, any kind of "green" that you can cut into thinly sliced or chopped as well, such as spinach, mustard even cabbage. If you don't have potatoes use 3/4 cup rice even some pasta, such as elbow macaroni even ramen noodles will work to give the soup some body. If you want spicier add more peppers.

In the coming hard times I foresee, might as well start stretching out the budgets and preps. This will make a very filling "soup" with a pretty good amount of nutrients. If this does not "fill you up" I make cheese quesadillas as a side.

Some of the gourmets on this site may sneer at this, but if you are on a tight budget and want something that is tasty, filling, and fairly quick to make this will work.

Arugula? Why are you putting lettuce in your soup?
And how do you measure it by the tablespoon?

 

[EZ-E]

Ground hamburger browned & seasoned to taste, drain grease, throw in some sliced potatoes or cubed potatoes, cook with hamburger to soften a little, then add a can of corn drained. Once it's all mixed together add 1 1/2 cups of water. Bring to slight boil, then mix a brown gravy pack with 1/2 cup of water. Pour gravy mix into pan with hamburger, potatoes & corn. Cook until gravy is to your thickness. Serve with buttered biscuits or bread

 

[Patience0830]

Ground hamburger browned & seasoned to taste, drain grease, throw in some sliced potatoes or cubed potatoes, cook with hamburger to soften a little, then add a can of corn drained. Once it's all mixed together add 1 1/2 cups of water. Bring to slight boil, then mix a brown gravy pack with 1/2 cup of water. Pour gravy mix into pan with hamburger, potatoes & corn. Cook until gravy is to your thickness. Serve with buttered biscuits or bread

You were doing good until you told me you couldn't make gravy.

 

[EZ-E]

You were doing good until you told me you couldn't make gravy.

Oh I can make gravy, I just choose to take the easy route sometimes.

 

[baboon]

You were doing good until you told me you couldn't make gravy.

Gravy after all is a sauce, not everyone is a trained saucier!

 

[EZ-E]

not everyone is a trained saucier!

 

[Axxe55]

Ground hamburger browned & seasoned to taste, drain grease, throw in some sliced potatoes or cubed potatoes, cook with hamburger to soften a little, then add a can of corn drained. Once it's all mixed together add 1 1/2 cups of water. Bring to slight boil, then mix a brown gravy pack with 1/2 cup of water. Pour gravy mix into pan with hamburger, potatoes & corn. Cook until gravy is to your thickness. Serve with buttered biscuits or bread

I have done a recipe similar to this, just minus the corn. Also goes good over some smashed potatoes or rice.

 

[2ManyGuns]

Arugula? Why are you putting lettuce in your soup?
And how do you measure it by the tablespoon?

Eyeball it for quantity, it has a distinct spiciness to it. You can add any type of green to a soup, in my instance I slip it into foods as often as possible for its vitamin K contents. I cook for my parents and my mother's doctor is anti-vitamin, and she(mother) will not take supplements because of her doctors' opinions. My mother has been through a stroke and cancer, I have to make an effort to see she gets the micro-nutrients because here medicines hinder the absorption of certain key ones. It pisses me off because you need B vitamins for example for reducing the occurrence of strokes. Other vitamins from foods as well since she suffers from eye-related issues.

 

[Patience0830]

Eyeball it for quantity, it has a distinct spiciness to it. You can add any type of green to a soup, in my instance I slip it into foods as often as possible for its vitamin K contents. I cook for my parents and my mother's doctor is anti-vitamin, and she(mother) will not take supplements because of her doctors' opinions. My mother has been through a stroke and cancer, I have to make an effort to see she gets the micro-nutrients because here medicines hinder the absorption of certain key ones. It pisses me off because you need B vitamins for example for reducing the occurrence of strokes. Other vitamins from foods as well since she suffers from eye-related issues.

I see and now I understand. Hope someone loves me enough to do that sort of thing if become unable.

 

[Patience0830]

Oh I can make gravy, I just choose to take the easy route sometimes.

Ok. You're off the hook then.

 

[2ManyGuns]

I see and now I understand. Hope someone loves me enough to do that sort of thing if become unable.

I even grow the veggies so that they are fresh or preserved by myself. Thus I know the source and what I have amended the soil with.

 

[Axxe55]

I freeze stale bread & ends. Bread stuffing, bread pudding, casseroles are all great uses for it. Bread crumbs work good in thickening soups & stews, besides extending meat loaves! a blender makes bread crumbs real quick!

You can also use stale bread to make croutons as well.

 

[baboon]

You can also use stale bread to make croutons as well.

Don't eat enough salads to bother with croutons

 

[contender buff]

Lentil soup with left over ham, carrots,celery and potatoes with a side of baguette and butter . Yum !

 

[Sasquatch]

The OP's soup is a lot like what my grandma who raised me would make every now and then. For a long time we grew most of our vegetables, or went to the U-pick and picked what we didn't grow, and she would can what we didn't eat fresh immediately.

Until she retired, she made everything from scratch. We ate left overs every other day, unless there were no left overs, or not enough to make a meal from - when she had not-enough left overs, she'd often make something like this, or she would otherwise find a way to stretch the left overs out.

My grandma was a master of not-measuring, but getting everything right. That is a skill that is practiced and perfected, not inherited! She was a depression baby born in 1933.

We had a lot of soups in the colder months, after the harvest. The "Dump Soup" like the OP's, home made potato soup, vegetable soup which often had ground beef instead of cubes of roast or steak, chicken or turkey noodle soup with home made egg noodles. She was a master of stretching a meal. She had to be because she'd come from a big family, and had a big family of her own - raising 9 of her own children. My grandmother often cooked like she was feeding a whole battalion. We would eat left overs for days until my grand dad couldn't take it, then she'd freeze what was left if it wasn't going bad by that point and we'd have it another time. We had three freezers when I was a kid - a BIG chest freezer, a stand up freezer, and the freezer that was built into our 2nd fridge. For a long time, our fridge in the kitchen had no freezer built into it.

 

[Axxe55]

Don't eat enough salads to bother with croutons

I do like a good Chef's Salad occasionally. Croutons can keep in the freezer almost forever.

 

[seeker_two]

Don't eat enough salads to bother with croutons

They work great as a substitute for chips, crackers, and garlic bread....

 

[pronstar]

If times are tough, salads aren’t good solutions IMHO.

Lettuce is expensive and doesn’t really pack many nutrients.


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