We did good with the challenge at lunch. My son had a hotdog. As I was closing up the hotdog bun bag, my daughter said "I'll eat that last one". I asked really?, because she was already planning on having something else. She replied, "well don't you want me to do the challenge?" Ha. Ok, have a bun. She also picked out tiny alphabet pasta. It was the end of the bag. When I made the enchilada sauce last night, I had maybe 1/3 of a can of tomato sauce leftover. She had that on her pasta today. After she ate there was probably one cup of pasta left so I just stuck it in the fridge figuring that they would snack on it later. I picked out another pasta (ruffles) that was the end of the box. I opened a jar of home canned tomatoes to put on it. I only used a small portion of the tomatoes, so in the fridge the rest went.
I was trying to figure out what to make for dinner. I saw that we had black beans/corn and brazilian rice leftover. I knew that no one would want to eat the rice for the third night in a row. I also figured that my son would not want to eat black beans again. Do I throw out that stuff? Nope, I hide them. Soup is the best dinner for hiding leftovers. I looked up recipes for black bean soup. Ah, ham and black bean. Oh wait, ham, black bean, and rice soup. Seriously?! How did they know all my leftovers? I grabbed a small container of ham out of the freezer (leftover from our Christmas ham) along with the container of homemade ham broth.
Time to make soup. I sauteed some onions and celery. I added in a little flour. Next, I added diced ham, the leftover black beans and corn, and the leftover rice. What else? I figured that the more "regular" vegetables that I put in, the more likely it will "hide" the black beans from my son. I found a bag of carrots in the freezer. Well, a partial bag. There was only about a cup left. I found a partial bag of peas too. I had a half bag of frozen green beans from my garden. I grabbed the rest of the jar of home canned tomatoes. I asked the kids if they were going to end up eating the alphabet pasta that I had put in the fridge at lunch, or if they wanted me to add that to the soup. Into the soup it went. I added a little salt and some cumin. The bottle of cumin sure has been used in the last few days! I topped it with a little parsley. Oh, one last look in the fridge and I spotted some leftover avocado from yesterday. Score! It finished off the soup perfectly.
The verdict? About five minutes into eating his dinner, my son says "hey. I see black beans in here". Um, yep. He made a sad face, but continued to eat until his bowl was completely empty. Then he asked for seconds....and ate all the black beans out of that bowl too! Both kids said it was a "make again soup". My only problem is trying to come up with a name for it. Ham and black bean soup? Nah, if I call it black bean soup then my son will probably not want to have it again. Ham soup? Nah, there is just too much more to this soup than to call it just ham. The cumin gives it a mexican taste. Mexican ham soup? Well, the recipe that I used for the rice a few days ago was Brazilian rice. Brazilian ham soup? I think we'll call it the soup with no name.
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