Frugal Café Blog Zone

Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on December 29, 2008

By Vicki McClure Davidson * Frugal Café Blog Zone

Turkey soup made from leftovers with vegetables - cheap, nutritious, and delicious | Photo credit: Ken Wightman

A former colleague of mine invited Hubby and me to a lovely after-Christmas dinner party on December 26: gorgeous decorations, buffet dinner with ham AND turkey, warm hospitality, animated conversation with many old friends. As we helped Former Colleague clean up at the end of the evening, I eyeballed the turkey carcass and drippings in the roasting pan still sitting on the kitchen counter.

Naturally, I asked if he was going to save the bones to make soup. He grimaced, then shook his head while chuckling at my question (my frugality is well known). ‘Nuff said.

I love Former Colleague to pieces, but he’s single and a punctilious neat-nik who detests leftovers or anything that could be messy. Soup-making hasn’t made it into his money-saving arsenal. He confessed that he had planned to just throw it all out.

So, I happily went home from the party with a huge zip-locked plastic bag of broken-down turkey carcass, wings, one leg, and several cups worth of attached-to-the-bones surplus turkey meat.

Yesterday was a glorious “Soup Makin’ Day” (a really cold, drizzly day in Arizona, which makes Soup Makin’ Day all the more homey). Several hours later, I removed the bones and bay leaves and sectioned several gallons of soup into six plastic containers, freezing most of it. Today was Day 1 of my turkey noodle soup lunches – good stuff! I used only half the meat and bones in the batch, so next weekend, I’ll conduct another Soup Makin’ Day, if there are any leftovers of the leftovers… we’ll have a few other turkey dishes for dinner this week, too.

My personal financial investment for the resulting batch of soup included two stalks of celery, several sliced carrots, half a bag of wide egg noodles, a cup or so of diced bell pepper and diced Anaheim chile pepper, trace amounts of herbs and spices, and a whole diced onion. End result: a bounty of five days’ worth of delicious, nearly free work lunches and one big soup dinner for the family. What was the cost to my family for those ingredients from our larder? I’m estimating a dollar, maybe two.

Soup is one of my frugal culinary passions, especially during the cold months. It tastes even better when it is filling, lo-cal, and nourishing for less than 10 cents a serving. Huzzah – I’m quietly high-fiving myself now for the unplanned food-budget savings our family has realized.

Frugal Café Related Articles:

Save Those Bones! Meat Stock to the Rescue
The A-Z of Making Vegetable Stock from Scratch
Frugal Versions of Famous Soups: Ronald Reagan’s Hamburger Soup, Soup Nazi’s Cream of Sweet Potato Soup, and More
Let’s Talk Turkey: What to Do with All Those Holiday Turkey Leftovers
Celebrity Recipes: Malcolm Forbes’ Warm Pumpkin Soup with Sauteed Lobster
Celebrity Recipes: Casey Kasem’s Vegetarian Soup
Celebrity Recipes: Maya Angelou’s Menudos (Tripe Stew)
Celebrity Recipes: Rascal Flatts’ Chicken Noodle Soup
Celebrity Recipes: Peter Max’s Maui Onion Soup
Celebrity Recipes: Martina McBride’s Tortilla Soup

Categories: Business & Economy, Food, Drink, Frugal Kitchen Tricks, Health, Holidays and Family, Thrifty Advice
Tags: bones, budget, carcass, carrots, celery, Christmas, economic recession, food, food budget, free, frugal, herbs, holiday cooking, holiday recipe, holiday recipes, homemade soup, leftovers, lunch, meat, noodles, onion, party, pepper, save money, saving money, soup, Soup Makin' Day, spices, thrifty, thrifty meal, turkey, Xmas