The Art of Leftover Soup

   
   Leftover soup is not soup that you ate in a different meal, but rather soup that is made from leftovers from another meal! 
   
    Sometimes (in our house, at least), if there is more than one days worth of leftovers in the fridge, they get passed by because we're bored with it!. I mean, eating something once is great, twice is o.k., but a third time? Boooor-ing!  
   
    Today's recipe is less of a recipe really, and more of an idea that I will trace for you in black, and you get to colour in yourself!

    It may seem like making soup from left-overs is a no-brainer, but as a teenager I once had soup that someone had made from basically every left-over they had!!! This soup had eggs and breakfast sausage, cut-up hamburger, left-over chicken noodle soup, & those frozen peas & carrots vegetables that had already been (over) cooked! This is a for real thing someone made! This experience was from more than 15 years ago and I still remember to this day all that was in the horrific meal! 

   So, see? There is an art to this! 

Left-Over Soup

Ingredients: 

• Leftovers! Things that work: meat, mashed potatoes, cooked veggies, roasted veggies, veggies "on their way out" (ya know, just getting too soft, etc.) Be sure to cut up anything that is not a nice bite-size. 
• 4 Cups of veggie, beef, or chicken stock per (approx.) 2 cups of leftovers.

Method:

1. Place stock into a medium or large pot, depending on the amount of leftovers being transformed into soup. 
2. Add leftovers, and warm it up! Because all the foods were already cooked, you don't need to "cook" this soup, just get it warmed up.
   
3. Add new seasoning if needed (it can help to bring a few random items together). You can add rice or pasta to your soup to give it more fill-you-up goodness, but just be aware that rice will steal some of your broth, and already cooked pasta can get soggy waiting around in soup

 
     
          **Some Tips for Flavour/Leftover Combining**

1. Don't add 2 meats to one soup!!! It just gets to be too much. If you have 2 types of leftover meat, make two batches of soup, and stash one away in the freezer for another day.
2. Don't use breaded meats. What was once a crispy, yummy outside to meat turns into mushy, yucky, slimy, scariness in a soup. 
3. This may be obvious, but don't add lettuce to a soup. Kale is good, spinach is o.k., but anything like iceberg, romaine or "spring mix" would be not so good. 
4. If you have more than one stock available (either homemade or bouillon cubes), choose the one that best suits what you're doing. For example, using veggie stock for a soup with only veggies, beef stock for a soup with leftover roast, or chicken stock for a soup with chicken. 
5. If you have 2 different portions of leftovers that each have a very distinct and different flavour, you may not want to put them in the same soup. There is a chance it could taste good, but a better chance the combo will be duelling, and you're soup will taste nasty!  

Italian Chicken Soup

   
   This soup was made from my "Tomato, Artichoke, & Cheese Chicken".  
   
   I added 4 cups of chicken stock, a pinch more basil, chopped up the leftovers a bit, & warmed it all up!  It made a really good soup!
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Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes Soup

   
   This soup is made from leftover mashed potatoes, and also the little bit of meat that remained from our Italian meatloaf. 
   
   I added 8 cups of stock (I had lots of potatoes!) to a large pot, some garlic powder, and rosemary. For the meat, I just crumbled it into the pot, and let the potatoes warm in the stock until I could stir them to a nice consistency. This soup was also very yummy!
   
   I hope you can use some leftovers in your fridge to whip up a batch of hot soup on this cold winter day! 
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