Leftover Veges - Create a Dinner for 3 for under $2.00

I've never been much for menu planning or been good at using leftovers to our advantage. Once we brought our son home from Russia, I found that leftovers became great small lunches and snacks. Some leftovers still eluded me as to what to do with them...for instance vegetables.

Many times we open a regular size can of vegetables for dinner and find that we can't finish the whole can. If we buy the smaller size can, we find it isn't enough. I hated throwing the leftover veges away.

One night my mother gave me a great idea. She said to take the leftover vegetables and put them in a freezer bag and into the freezer. So each time we had vegetables I would just open the same bag and dump in the leftovers. After a few weeks I had a full baggie with peas, carrots, green beans and corn.

Next I took 6 cups of water and boiled it and added 6 chicken boullion cubes. Once boiling I added half a bag of bowtie noodles. Once cooked I added already cubed grilled chicken and then dumped in the frozen vegetables. I let it boil for a few minutes (Without letting the noodles get overdone) and ta da! We had yummy homemade chicken noodle soup!

The breakdown of cost is as follows:

Chicken boullion cubes (25 for $2.49, used 6) - $0.60

1/2 bag of bowties ($0.79 on sale) - $0.40

Diced chicken ($0.99 on sale) - $0.99

Frozen vegetables - FREE

Total for a big pan of soup - $1.99

We even had leftovers for my husband to have a lunch the following day!