Recipe: Kitchen sink soup

We have been under a stay-at-home order for several weeks. School has been out for a month.

We bought food when the stay-at-home order started. But sometime you look at the cabinet and think “What are we going to eat?”

When we lived in West Virginia, snow was a common winter occurrance.

One of the things we make during cold weather is Kitchen Sink Soup. It’s a good way to use odds and ends in your cabinet at fridge. I usually cook this in the crockpot while I’m at work as it develops flavors more. My husband just cooks it on the stove.

During the stay-at-home order, it’s another good way to solve the meal mystery and use as many leftovers and odd things as possible

As a note, you can add meat to this recipe, but it doesn’t seem to keep as well as vegetable soup.

Just a word of warning, potatoes don’t cook well in crockpots, so I usually use either canned potatoes or boil my own.

Some frozen vegetables — like frozen potatoes, onions or okra — don’t work well.

Basic recipe

3 medium potatoes, diced, pre-cooked

1 can beans (I usually use great northern), drained

1 can diced tomatoes, with Italian seasoning

1 can mixed vegetables or 1/2 bag frozen mixed soup vegetables

1 container of vegetable juice

1 container chicken broth

salt and pepper, to taste

Mix all vegetables in a crock pot. Add vegetable juice and chicken broth until the vegetables are completely covered.

Cook in crockpot on low for 6-8 hours or 4-5 hours on high.

Variations

Moraccan soup: Use chickpeas, frozen spinach or kale and a spice mixture of 1 tsp. garlic powder, 1 tsp. cumin, 1/2 tsp. ginger, 1/2 tsp. cinnamon.

Vegetables with chicken broth: Get another container of chicken broth and get rid of the vegetable juice.