My 'Use up' soup

Serves 2

• 570ml chicken stock

  Stocks

  Made from your meat and fish bones.

  Frozen in ice cubes for gravies, risotto and cooking rice. Once frozen, remove from the ice trays and pack into freezer bags. Use stock powder or cubes if you do not have any home made available.

• 1 sliced garlic clove
• 4 over ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
• A handful of runner beans, chopped
• 1 tablespoon of homemade tomato ketchup or tomato puree

  Tomato puree

  Concentrate made from paste type tomatoes that have high pectin content.

  When they’re cooked down, they’re put through a strainer to remove skins and seeds, and reduced further until almost all of the moisture has evaporated. Usually a recipe will call for a tablespoon or two, just enough to enrich a beef stew, for instance, or to deepen the flavour of a sauce made with fresh tomatoes.

• A drained tin of mixed beans

  Beans

  Canned, dried or baked beans for the kids.

  • Canned are most useful when in a hurry. Except for baked beans, once the can is open, tip the contents into a sieve or colander and run under the cold tap to rinse well.
  • If you want to use dried beans in a recipe instead of canned ones, soak half the weight of canned beans in cold water overnight then cook in fresh boiling water until tender. Drain and use in a recipe.
  • Beans can be served alone or mixed with other flavourings and foods. They are also great used to thicken soups and stews. They can be mixed with pasta or rice in soup for a hearty dish.
  • Beans are a good substitute for meat in burgers as protein.
  • Cold cooked beans are also excellent mixed with garlic dressing for a salad and served with cold meats or fish.
• French bread
• Leftover soft cheese

  Cheese

  Add to eggs for omelettes, grate onto soups or salads.

  • Parmesan often goes rock hard or becomes horribly sweaty. Ideally, all cheese should be stored in a cool, airy place at a temperature of 46-50F/8-10C. However, most of us put it straight into the fridge. This is fine providing the cheese is kept loosely wrapped in its own airtight container so it isn’t tainted by other foods.
  • Store it in the salad drawer, which is not quite as cold as the rest of the fridge and use a micro plane for grating.
• Virgin olive oil

  Olive oil

  Usually the darker green the oil, the richer the flavour.

  • Extra virgin olive oil is good for drizzling on salads and should never be heated as this destroys the fine properties
  • Lighter olive oil is good for adding to bread, or to flavour a salad or marinade for chicken, meat, fish or vegetables. Lighter olive oil can be gently heated and added to marinades and baking.
• Black pepper

  Black peppercorns

  Best used as a condiment.

  They can be lightly crushed and used to spice up a creamy sauce or to coat fillet steak or chicken breasts.

  • Although it might seem odd, grinding black pepper over a bowl of strawberries enhances the flavour of the fruit.
  • Pepper that is pre-ground is not fresh tasting and often has other ingredients mixed in.
  • Choose the type of mill that suits you, and if you want coarser pepper you can loosen the screw on the top of the mill or crush the seeds in a pestle and mortar