Yesterday Soup: Best Soup Ever

Remember that stock we made last week. Here’s how to use it to make the best soup ever.

By the end of the week, I have a refrigerator full of odds and ends. In the freezer, there are always a few containers of frozen one or two serving dinners that just hadn’t made it back to the table.

These are the building blocks of Leftover Soup – a fabulous and fabulously easy recipe that lets you revisit favorite meals, costs nothing, and is probably good for you.

The result is a soup that has hints of everything you ate the week before – a little Chinese spice from the leftover General Tsao’s, a beef flavor from the Tuesday meat loaf, some crunch from fried chicken Friday.

In its most basic form, leftover soup is made by saving all the leftovers from a week’s meals – leftover bread or other starches included, taking them on (for me, usually) Monday, dumping them in the crock pot, adding stock and water (if your stock is reduced down), cooking on low all day, and eating when you get home. Do take meat off the bones, but no other prep is needed. If you want Cream of Yesterday soup, use an immersion blender on the brew before serving.

OK, that is the no frill, no work version of Leftover Soup. But to make the Best Soup Ever takes a little more thought.

I discovered this Saturday, a day I was in the city, but without plans, child, or husband. I also had a refrigerator full of bits and pieces of leftovers that I I had hoped to eat during the week, but were still there come Saturday.

I started a sauté pan with some butter and added green onion (grown from one of our onions that had gone old and started to grow – you can do that you know), garlic, three whole dried cayenne peppers (from our garden, dried in the bathtub in the basement). I added some leftover harissa from the Capitol Hill restaurant Cava (harissa is a hot pepper and oil dip, I believe of African origins, but made by Cava, a greek mezza restaurant on Capitol Hill, and available at Whole foods). I also blended in Curry powder, garam masala, and ground fenugreek seeds.

I let this concoction sauté for a while, mostly to enjoy how great it made the house smell. Before the garlic burned, I added a couple cups of stock and some water (since my stock was quite reduced down and gelatinous). I covered the mixture and let it bubble away for a while – maybe an hour. If your lid is not tight and the liquid reduces down, add more back as you notice the level falling.

About 30 minute before I wanted to eat (maybe less), I first pulled out the dried chili pods. Then I threw in the low simmering pot the leftovers I had gleaned from the fridge – a bowl of Asian noodles in peanut sauce, a bowl of spicy chicken tikki masala (off the bone), a bowls of lightly cooked mixed veggies.

That’s it – the final result was incredibly spicy – which I wanted – probably the result of the harissa. But I loved it – and it was a one bowl meal, with a selection of veggies, tasty chicken, and Asian noodles.

The beauty of Leftover Soup is that you can choose the flavors from the last few weeks you want to revisit, you can add any herbs or other flavors you just want in any dish (for me, garlic and hot peppers), and you can use your own delicious stock.