How did she do that? TUESDAY

Vegetable Bean Soup ...another miracle worker.....six quarts of soup feeds a family well.   Its low in carbs and with a loaf of bread serves six.

Peasant Bread takes then minutes total hands on time and that is split between two days.   In the time it takes you to pick up the mail and hang up your coat, you can have a batch of bread dough waiting on the counter developing .

The soup:

Sauté 2 celery ribs and 2 large carrots, cut in small slices.   Add olive oil and some. Italian herbs.
Add to the slow cooker or the insta pot that you program on slow cook.   We use the leaves as well as the ends of the celery.   I save the ends for vegetable stock.   You can grow more celery from the stub end of the celery bunch.   It’s a good lesson for children.   They have fun watching it get bigger every day and changing the water.

Add 2 cans of diced tomatoes .   A full quart of any stock you choose.   I keep chicken, tomato, vegetable and beef boullion on hand for those days when I dont have scratch.   In bulk, the cost of he teaspoon you put in a cup of water is minimal.   Beef is the exception, Better than boullion is m9or expensive but we don't use it often.

2 cans of beans....not necessarily the same.   Beans are .50 at Winco lately.   IF you make beans in the insta pot, they cost less than 02 a 1/2 cup serving.   The four cups you use for this recipe cost .16.   Beans would be cheaper if you bought bags in bulk, but unless you have a dry large family, they would not be used up fast enough.

Cost:
Celery and carrots :  .45
Beans .16
Tomatoes @ .39 can equals .78
Stock.
Total 1.39

You can add pasta or orzo to the pot if you want to stretch it.   I have been getting Barilla pasta for a dollar....either at the regular stores or at the DT.