Mouthwatering Homemade Turkey Noodle Soup

We love homemade soup especially on a rainy, cold day.  Your belly starts to growl about 2 hours into the slow cooking because of the aroma that permeates our entire apartment.

turkey noodle soup with french bread

We really like the idea that it’s cheap!  Yep, that’s what Cheap Bastid is all about—making really good tasty and healthful food inexpensively.  And the major expense of this dish is the vegetables and noodles because everything else is left-overs.  In fact, I’ve got some left-over turkey noodle soup that I’m going to heat up and eat just as soon as I get done with this post.

Yesterday I wrote about making stock from a leftover turkey breast carcass.  This let me make “stockcicles” or ice cubes made from the stock that I can use anytime for flavoring in soup, sauces, sautéing or gravy.  Best of all, it’s free!  You’re using what many people throw away to make something that you usually buy—and it tastes a lot better and has a lot less sodium. Continue reading

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It’s All About Homemade Turkey Stock!

For the last couple of years I’ve been making my own homemade turkey stock and broth.  (Beef and Pork stock too!)  Now I don’t know the technical difference between the two but I think it has to do with how much you cook your liquid down and how concentrated the flavors get.

grilled turkey breast

This Thanksgiving turkey breast provided more than a dozen meals!

Saturday I finally pulled out the turkey breast carcass left-over from Thanksgiving.  (After Thanksgiving, I put it into a gallon freezer bag and shoved it in the freezer).  The weather forecast here in Southern California called for a weather front and rain for the next couple of days.  Perfect for turkey noodle soup!  And stock.

I figured what I’d do is cook it down on Saturday and then use most of the stock to make a soup on Sunday and use the rest for “stock-cicles”.

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Cheap Bastid’s Comfort Food–Swiss Steak!

It’s a new year and time for Cheap Bastid to get back in the swing of things.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Cheap Bastid, let me just say that I like cheap! More particularly, I believe passionately in saving money, especially on food.  It is totally possible to have a severely limited budget and to eat well.  You just have to do a couple of things: shop smart and cook.

Now, I don’t mean that you cook either by opening a carton of stuff you bought pre-cooked and heat it up.  And I don’t mean that you have to make something like they do on “Top Chef”–gourmet techniques using expensive ingredients from expensive grocers like Whole Foods.  But you can use simple ingredients and prepare home cooked meals that taste good, are nutritious and which are inexpensive.  And, Cheap Bastid tries to do that and share with interested readers.

When it’s really, really cold outside like it has been throughout most of the country so far in 2010, what you crave is home-cooked comfort food.  Something that’s going to fill your home with some fantastic aromas for a few hours and then taste as good and be as warm and filling as those aromas have been promising.

That’s why I’m sharing my all-time, absolute favorite comfort food recipe with you today.  I have loved this dish since I was a little kid and my Mom would make it.  I’ve been fixing it a couple of times a year for 30+ years and my daughter’s request for the recipe about 4 years ago is what prompted me to write a cookbook for my children titled “Dad’s Kitchen Survival Guide and Cookbook”.  (Word document copies available via e-mail for free upon request).

swiss steak

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Introducing Cheap Bastid

I’m sitting at my computer on my dining room table trying to figure out how to introduce myself and this whole “Cheap Bastid” thing.

Now, I could blame my wife for liking my cooking and for encouraging me to get creative because the more cooking I do, the less she does and she’d just as soon keep me in the kitchen and out of other trouble. cheap bastid eating

Or I can blame my daughter, Susan, who several years ago called me up and asked me for the recipe for Swiss Steak like I used to make for her and her brother Mike when they were little.  That single recipe turned into a cookbook full of other recipes I used to make when they were growing up starting with that all time favorite Fish Sticks and Tater Tots.

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