Week 2, Day 7: Have Stoup, the nearly-free lunch!
Jul 29, 2011
Who says there's not such thing as a free lunch? Only people who don't keep a Stoup container in their freezer!
Stoup is a stew-soup made from leftovers collected throughout the two weeks of the Cook for Good Challenge or anytime, plus anything that needs to be eaten before it goes bad.
Add tomatoes, onions, garlic, and beans as needed to rev up the flavor and protein. For example, you might start with some extra pasta sauce, a carrot that's a bit limp, a handful of rice or pasta, broth from cooking chickpeas, and parsley stems. (Remove the parsley stems before serving.)
The Challenge shopping list includes two servings each of chickpeas and pinto beans to add to the Stoup, but you can save them for other purposes if your Stoup doesn't need them. Thin Stoup with broth from your broth jar.
Often Stoup is delicious as is: just thaw the container, dump it in a pot, heat, and taste. That's three minutes and zero dollars for a hearty meal or two. And by not eating the food you otherwise would have had for those meals, you are shrinking your carbon footprint.
Today's menu
Dishes you prepare today are marked in bold.
| breakfast | toasted Good Whisk Bread, peanut butter, tea |
| lunch | Stoup with half-serving each of pinto beans and chickpeas, carrot, peach |
| snack | bell pepper |
| dinner | rotini with Tomato Sauce with Peppers and Onions, half-ounce each of Parmesan and mozzarella, Garlic Flat Bread, cucumber, blueberries, Chocolate Pudding |
Congratulations!
If you've made it this far, you've completed the Cook for Good Summer Challenge! I'll be doing one more blog post about how to get your Challenge certificate and how to share what you've learned with others.
In August, we'll be having a Cook for Good Summer Challenge Encore, with updated and improved versions of the blog posts and emails you've gotten during the national launch. Please think about inviting your friends or a group to participate.
Reader Comments (2)
Hi there! Ok - I'm ready to start my first month! I'm feeling overwhelmed with the Summer Shopping List. Do you recommend buying everything for the whole month all at once? It seems like some fresh items would spoil. What are your tips for separating out the monthly shopping list for a weekly shopping trip? Thanks so much Linda! I'm so excited! :)
Yaaay, Cyndi! I don't break down the menus by week because it's so hard to know when people have money or time and when items will be available, but here's how I shop:
* One big shopping once a month for non-perishables that don't go on sale (bulk organic beans).
* Every week, go to the farmers' market and grocery store to buy milk, produce, and whatever I need that week or what's on sale. Cheese keeps for weeks and eggs for two or three weeks, so I try to buy them on sale.
You can save even more money than is shown in the WAO averages with these tips:
* Invest any extra money in seasonal produce to freeze or on sales of non-perishables such as pasta and peanut butter.
* Order pantry items in bulk. You can save 10% or more buy ordering a flat of canned tomatoes, for example. That's just six cans, so do it every month.