Everyday Systems

Have any of you ever done this? If you have a collection of ingredients you need to use up, that you think ought to work together in a some kind of recipe, you just enter the foods in Google and see what recipes pop up.

Tonight I located a recipe for broccoli-potato soup that used up some evaporated milk I had left over. Made a great dinner, and won approval from my guys (who usually don't like soup).

Here's the link: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/potato-bro ... etail.aspx

The evaporated milk suggestion was in one of the notes - a lot of people suggest variants. I used one medium onion, about 6 medium potatoes, a handful of raw broccoli and about an equal amount of carrots, about 4 cups water and one bouillion cube (all I had - and I wish I'd had broth), about 3/4 can of evaporated milk, and about 6 oz sharp cheddar. I used the immersion blender liberally, after the veggies were cooked and before I added the milk and cheese.

I also made whole wheat Irish Soda Bread to go with it. Yum!

I've not done that, but I made soup nearly identical to it last week. I've had the recipe over 25 years.

Hi KCCC,

You might appreciate this website:

http://www.supercook.com/

You just enter in the ingredients that you have on hand and they search recipes for you.

Happy cooking!

Tana

You can also do this at the Ingredients link at allrecipes.com. You can specifiy up to four ingredients you want, and four ingredients you DON'T want. I like that site because of the comments, which are usually very helpful.

Your soup sounds great!

Thanks, Starla and Tana! The recipe I chose came from Allrecipes, and I do like the comments - sometimes the "variants" make the best versions! But I had never seen their ingredient search until you pointed it out.

I think I'll like that. Sometimes I look at Cooks.com (I think that's right), but it only lists the first five ingredients on the main page, and you have to click in to see the rest. That's when I see that it includes some processed food that I'd never have in my house... waste of time. How nice to be able to exclude some of those common items (like canned soup) up front.

Wosnes, this is probably a really basic recipe to anyone who makes soup regularly, which I know you do. I'm just a "soup novice," despite years of other cooking. And I'm ridiculously pleased to be able to make an easy soup that my family actually LIKES!