Leftover soup

For dinner yesterday, we had pork chops with mashed potatoes and asparagus (for me; Ian had baked beans). I saved the water that I cooked the potatoes in, and used that to rinse the griddle pan that I cooked the chops in, putting the whole lot in a small saucepan. When we'd finished dinner, I put the bones and leftover bits from the chops into that pan and boiled it up, leaving it to simmer for the rest of the evening to make stock, straining it before I went to bed. I also saved the tough (well, relatively) bits from the bottoms of the asparagus spears, and we had a bit of mashed potato left over because I'd cooked too much.

At lunchtime today, I heated up the stock to boiling, trimmed the asparagus stems to lose the woodiest bits at the bottom and some of the skin, and cut them into small pieces. Time was when I'd have blended this at the end, but I'm trying to use as little electricity as possible, so I sliced finely instead. I added the asparagus to the stock, and when that had cooked for a few minutes, added the potato and stirred well until it was smoothly mixed into the stock, then finished with a little salt and pepper. The result was a very tasty soup :-)

Leftover soup with stock from pork chops, asparagus stalks,
and mashed potatoes

Recipes are all very well, but good food can be made by applying general cookery ideas to whatever ingredients come to hand.