Left Over Soup You’ll Eat Again

It is bitter cold again.  In these parts, it’s not spring yet until the weather turns warm, and then it snows again; it feels as if it could snow any second.

The cold has inspired me to make soups. But, you know how you get inspired to make a big batch of soup, and you go a bit overboard, and you have tons of leftovers?  So much, that you cannot (and your family refuses) to eat in the next few days.  So you freeze it, but you can’t imaging thawing that huge big chunk of brown ice?

Here’s a great way to freeze left-over soup in individual size portions, to make it easier and more likely you use again. We’re going to leave those plastic containers in your cupboard, that you can never find the lids to anyway, out of this.  This is simple, easy and no-fuss.  The less fuss, the more likely you’ll eat the soup again.

• Fill those cheap sandwich bags with your soup, in just-right serving amounts. Stick the bag into a coffee mug, or something narrow and tall, to give the bag the support you’ll need to ladle the soup in.  Here, I’ve filled the bag with cooked black beans… this method works for beans too.  (Cook up dried beans in a crock pot… easy, and you’ll always have them on-hand for great easy meals like this.)  If you’re really neat,  and keep the bags dry, the next steps will be easier.

• Next place your collection of soup-filled bags, neatly, together in a large freezer bag. This time, use the real kind of freezer bag.
• Freeze the big bag, with your little soup portions inside.
• When you need a quick lunch, or even dinner, pull out the individual portions you need, and microwave (never microwave plastic), or thaw overnight in the fridge.  I rarely use my microwave, so I just tear off the plastic (sometimes it needs help with hot water) from the chunk of soup, and simmer it in a pan. It thaws very fast this way.

Or, make a pot pie out of your soup.

Put your thawed soup into thawed phyllo dough, and bake, according to the instructions on the phyllo dough box.  The soup is cooked, so all you’re doing is reheating the soup, and cooking the dough.