On St. Patrick’s Day I made corned beef and cabbage, which turned out well. There isn’t too much to report on that front, because all I did is follow the directions on the corned beef bag. After, however, Leah had the idea of turning the leftover broth and vegetables into soup, and as it turns out, corned beef soup is pretty good!

I am a huge fan of re-purposing foods. I feel like I practically grew up on leftovers, or at least they were always my favorite food when young. My best friend Johnny would eat at our house frequently in middle and high school, and he ended up nicknaming us “the leftover family.” I think my parents were busy, and whenever my mom or dad could double a recipe and then serve it as something else a few days later, they would. So this isn’t much of a recipe, which is why it is going under the “Jeff” section on the “Batch” page—with all the other goofball foods (“bachelor delight,” anyone?). Try it out though!

So the first part—the corned beef. The internet will show you a few different ingredients to use. Here’s what I did:

• 3.15 lb. corned beef
• A whole bag of small red potatoes
• A couple carrots
• A large parsnip
• Half an onion
• A head of cabbage
• Enough water to cover everything

For the corned beef I used a crock pot. To go through making it very quickly, everything but the cabbage goes in initially. To prepare:

1. Chop the potatoes into fourths or fifths
2. Skin the parsnip and carrots (and by the way, ever since Leah made parsnip mash after I had lip surgery, I can’t get enough of it—it’s truly an underused vegetable)
3. Chop up the half onion
4. Put in enough water to cover everything, then it cook on low for about six hours
5. Half an hour before serving divide the cabbage into four or five wedges and throw it in as well

That’s it, and then once the meat is eaten just transfer what’s left into a large pot. We considered adding bouillon cubes, but honestly, the broth didn’t need anything else. This surprised me a bit, since good broths seem to come from bones and corned beef is boneless, but Leah said the broth was delicious because of corned beef’s fat. This makes the broth look a little filmy when cold, but once you bring the pot to heat it starts looking—and smelling—good. Then for two new ingredients:

• One cup of shredded rotisserie chicken
• One to two cups of egg noodles

Tear off the chicken with a fork and add it as the soup boils, and add the egg noodles five minutes before serving—the directions are simple. Without exaggeration this made the best chicken noodle soup I’ve ever had. Chicken noodle soup can be watery, but this corned beef chicken noodle soup (I guess we’ll call it that) had substance. Leah and I will be making this in the future, and if you know of any great ways to re-purpose common dishes, let us know—we’d love to hear your ideas!

–Jeff and Leah