Show her your leftovers, she'll make you dinner
Penny-pinching cooking is Sandy Wegmann's specialty, and just in time.
In the thick of layoffs and shrinking paychecks, we could all use a trick or two for saving money.
Growing up poor in Canada, of Irish and French Canadian parents, Sandy learned how to eat for a week on what most families throw away. She holds on to frugal kitchen philosophy still today.
"Whatever does not get used up goes in the soup pot or into a tasty sandwich spread," she says. "I am great at making something out of nothing and doing something interesting with leftovers."
Virtually nothing is thrown away. When she steams broccoli Sandy saves the trimmings and freezes them until she has enough for cream of broccoli soup.
She freezes water used for boiling potatoes for making potato bread; the liquid from canned salmon goes into fish chowders.
She makes her own stocks, saves bacon drippings and makes homemade dog biscuits.
A handful of leftover nuts goes into the bread machine "for extra fiber" while limp green peppers and onions are chopped and frozen for later use in soups and casseroles.
"I have girlfriends who would never eat a leftover and never eat soup, but they are happy to eat mine," she says. One of them saved the bone from a ham and gave it to Sandy for soup.
"Show me your leftovers, I'll cook for you," says the Naperville woman. "You have to have a well-stocked pantry, with every spice (and herb) you like, soup bases, dried beans, lentils, pastas and flour."
Her children call her the Casserole Queen because she can combine leftovers with pasta, veggies and maybe a heel of cheese to create a new meal.
"Yesterday I had a big bag of carrots that needed to be eaten - God forbid you should waste them," she says. "I put them together with onion, potato and bacon for chowder.
Retired after working 40 years and raising two children, Sandy always prepared homemade meals for her family.
"On weekends I cooked for the week," she says. "It can be done."
She may be frugal, but Sandy doesn't skimp on hospitality.
Joy Malone Dudgeon, a Wheaton friend, raves about Sandy's "wonderful cuisine" and presentation.
"A dinner at Sandy's, even for one, includes being served with the crystal and best China treatment," she says.
This week's menu overflows with economical soups.
"If you put together a couple of good soups on the weekend, you will always have a hot, nourishing meal at a moment's notice," she says. Sandy makes rolls in her bread machine and freezes them to round out last-minute meals.
Canadian Fishing Camp Chowder is one of her standbys and a good way to use up a couple slices of bacon, a lone potato and onion and an orphaned rib of celery.
From her Irish neighborhood in Toronto, dubbed "Cabbage Town," Sandy offers Winter Cabbage Chowder, "good, cheap eats in cold weather."
Cabbage reappears in Hungarian Sausage Soup, a substantial meal to fuel long sessions of snow shoveling or sledding.
Sandy's penny-pinching ways go beyond cooking. Recently she learned how to make the solution for her floor cleaner.
Of course.
Hungarian Sausage Soup
7 cups water
6 chicken bouillon cubes
2 cups onion, chopped
2 tablespoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds
4 potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 pound (about 8 cups) coarsely shredded cabbage
8 ounces kielbasa, chopped
1 can (about 14 ounces) chopped tomatoes or stewed tomatoes
1/2 cup sour cream
Bring to a boil the water, bouillon cubes, onion, paprika and caraway in a soup pot. Add potatoes and cabbage and return to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes or until vegetables are tender.
Stir in kielbasa and tomatoes and boil gently for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in sour cream. Serve with rye bread.
Serves six.
Winter Cabbage Chowder
1 tablespoon butter
2 cups cabbage, chopped fine
2 carrots, diced
3 potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, diced
1/4 teaspoon savory
1 bay leaf
2 cups chicken broth
4 cups milk, hot
Salt and pepper
Melt butter in soup pot, add cabbage, carrots, potatoes, onion, celery, savory and bay leaf. Stir to coat with butter. Cover and cook on low for about 20 minutes, stirring once or twice.
Add broth and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add hot milk and adjust seasonings.
Serves six.
Canadian Fishing Camp Chowder
2 slices bacon, diced
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup celery, chopped
1 tablespoon flour
1 potato, peeled and diced
1 cup water or chicken stock
3/4 teaspoons salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon dried dill
1 pound halibut (or any white fish)
1 can (about 14 ounces) corn kernels, undrained
1 cup half-n-half or evaporated milk
1 cup milk
Pat of butter
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped, or 1 tablespoon dried
Cook bacon in Dutch oven or soup pot until crisp. Remove with slotted spoon; drain and set aside.
Saute onion and celery in bacon fat until tender. Whisk in flour. Add potatoes, water or stock, salt, pepper and dill. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer 10 minutes. or until potato is tender.
Add the fish, cover and simmer 10 minutes more. Add corn, cream and milk and heat gently; do not boil. Adjust seasoning to taste, sprinkle with reserved bacon and parsley.
Serves six.