Expedient Soup (and Opportune Bread) - Using What I Have 

I remember as a child my mother making “bone soup” from the butchers unwanted bits. A favourite then. She was 101 last week!!!

I call this Grandma cooking. Grandma could make unbelievable meals out of dust bunnies and wilted lettuce.

By the way.I have a suggestion for a challenge. Potato week. One week of meals, No strict money limit but your main ingredient of the week has to be the potato. I would love to see how far you could push it.

I really love these type of videos. In a similar style to this, I think it would be really interesting to see a series where you use Too Good To Go bags from somewhere like Morrisons to make a meal from. In my experience they can vary from perfect meal ingredients to "10 candied apples, a pack of gingerbread cookies, and some celery" - it can be tricky to find a good way to use it all up! An interesting alternative to budget meals perhaps :)

The best soup my grandmother ever made was created upon returning home late from vacation, with whatever she found on hand. We fondly recall how much we liked it, all these decades later. It was never replicated, as there was no recipe nor intention to remember one. This is lovely, and so nostalgic. I think most people would order delivery, or eat a frozen dinner, or just snack. But to make a hearty meal, from scratch, using the senses of ingenuity and experience…really lovely.

Since I don't pay for these videos, I think a thank you is in order. Thanks for providing me with hours of educational and entertaining content free of charge.

I was ready to eat something garbage for lunch and then this video popped up. Now I sit at home, cutting vegetables for a throw-all-in-rice pan. Thanks for the motivation!

It’s fascinating how 1 man cooking his lunch can be so entertaining! Good job again Mr Shrimp👍

It's not even my old house, and I feel a pang of nostalgia that the herbs are dwindling. ❤ Thanks for sharing how you have re-invented your dwelling space!

When I heard the words " we'll just have to make a meal with what we've got in the house", my thoughts flew to " oh god, not Eva !!!"

I really like how your videos have encouraged me to make up my own recipes and not worry so much about the directions!

I have been having a really crap week and then I get the notification that Atomic Shrimp has posted a video and all of a sudden things just get so much better. Great video.

I like your cooking because you explain the process rather than just demonstrating it. It's so much more educational and allows someone to experiment or adapt to different ingredients and situations. Well done.

Like how you mentioned about NOT skimming off the fat - natural fats are an important part of a regular diet (facilitates the absorption of some nutrients) plus it IS flavor. Soup looks great!

Every time I see you nonchallantly put together a loaf of bread it feels like I'm watching black magic.

Scrounge cooking is something I grew up with being on the low end of poor, making something tasty out of whatever is on hand has always been something I find oddly fun. It's amazing what you can come up with using only a handful of odds and ends, a bit like your "dice directed cooking" video, it forces one to be creative. It's snowing here and I'll be throwing together a beef pot roast and veggies in the pressure cooker, perfect video to accompany my meal prep. Hope you, Jenny and Eva are warm and happy.

We're so glad you were able to make stuff with stuff you had since you can't make stuff with stuff you don't have.

Really love these videos, unlike a lot of other RU-vidrs your voice is actually calm and relaxing to listen to

My Polish aunt Kate used to call what you've made gozinta soup, because whatever is in the kitchen gozinta the soup!

These videos always bring me joy

Looks great, can't beat a nice wintry soup and homemade bread is the icing on the cake.

I love the whole improvising but casually that this channel does. That is also the main reason why I love the food challenges. He does not play things up or add in unnecessary energy. It is just calming

Great video as useual Mike, Glad to see i'm not the only one who reuses the Nutella jars as drinking glasses!

Weirdly, these slice-of-life with a slice-of-bread videos are kinda my favourite

The cut away to you opening the cupboard and picking out the peeled wheat caught me off guard. Keeping us on our toes, i love it. #CinematicShrimp

When my husband was getting more and more an alcoholic and was forgetting that me and our toddlers needed to eat, I had to make something the children could eat from a shriveled carrot, chicken boullion cubes, an egg, about a cup of flour and seasonings. In the middle of winter in a uninsulated house that was bitterly cold. I made them chicken noodle soup. The children remembered that soup for years later. They also remembered that house. They called it the rotten house.

I'm not a huge fan of soup, but man do I love it when chicken hits that "tender, stringy" stage of cooked. If I had a slow cooker, I'd probably cook meat a lot more then I do. I'm always amazed by Shrimp's ability to just have fresh food on hand and then throw it all together with minimal thought. I, in comparison, need to plan my meals at least 4 days ahead of time or I'll either be missing a critical ingredient (like flour) or food will go bad before I can use it. That's why I like these videos, I feel like they get me to think more about my options and to explore more impulsive cooking. (doesn't help that my pantry and cooking supplies are pretty minimalistic, but I do what I can)

After watching this and knowing some of the bits I had in plus wanted to make a chicken broth soup with pasta, you inspired me to make my own. Got two chicken legs, carrot, squash, sweet potato, leek and onion simmering away for later to hopefully help me fight off the end of this lurgy. Also added some lemon and ginger for healing properties as a little under the weather too. Thanks for the idea.

It looks delicious! When the bread is stale it can also freshen up nicely soaked in the soup. Thank you for the video.

This is exactly why I always have several types of bone broth in the freezer. Fantastic emprovision!

Team pressurecooker!! Love your videos. When ingredients are low, you show humbleness in abundance. Please make more videos, in these frugal times.

Both parts of this looked incredible. The bread came out so crisp! I'm going to try that brushing water technique on my next loaf; typically I put a tray of boiling water in the oven before baking the bread, but this gives me very inconsistent results depending on the size of baking tray I've got the bread on.

I did chicken and veg in apple juice this week. It was surprisingly yummy. Worth trying.

As a Newfoundlander who's used to bad storms in the winter, I always have lots of food stored up. I also store lots of paper products and hygiene items. When I got covid in September, I subsisted off of my store cupboard. I love the security of having extras on hand.

Some of the best meals are made up on the spot with what you have handy.

Your soup and bread looked delicious! Fresh bread and butter with a brothy chicken soup is one of my comfort foods. I love watching you cook. On the garlic, I moved to a humid climate some years ago and my garlic powder started clumping like that. I discovered garlic granules, very small particles but not a quite powder. The granules don’t clump and the taste isn’t overpowering like larger pieces would be.

You inspire me to be less wasteful! I would’ve thrown out the pepper, but I should break that habit. 😅

So glad that there is an international food shop near you. I love the food hauls you do from different countries food shops

The next time you're at the Turkish shop you might want to get some bulgur, which is very versatile - as a side dish when cooked in broth or thin soup (with leftovers as a cold salad) or to bulk up soups and stews,… Knowing your creativity I'm sure you'll make something I haven't listed.

In Romania, celeriac is very often used in soups to give them flavor, alongside carrots and onions. They don't use celery (or at least, not in the way I learned to cook when I lived there), but the combination of onion+celery+carrots is just something special that can't be beat for soup flavor, in my opinion. Add to that some chicken or dumplings (semolina dumplings - my favorites; called găluște de griș in Romanian for anyone who's curious), and you've got yourself a banger of a soup.

The advice and explanation about brushing the bread with plain water just before baking is very helpful. Thank you.

Celeriac is a staple of Hungarian weekend meat soup( usually chicken but whatever meat is ok) it has saddened me to see the rest of the world doesn't even know it. But you never disappoint Mr Michael Shrimp! Great to see it appreciated.

I would love to know your pantry and fridge essentials, what you always try to have around to cook with/eat. Would be very interesting and useful to people who can be indecisive buying food

I just love Shrimpy's ingenuity, thriftyness, and general attitude of as little waste as possible in his videos. Even down to using old kettle water!

This just popped up in my feed, I haven't seen any in ages. Hope you have been well

These videos are so fun! A while back I was inspired by you to try to make my own stew soup kind of thing. I used garlic, onion, chicken thighs, pumpkin, sweet potato and regular potatoes. Pumpkin and sweet potato are some of my favourite vegetables and the stew ended up being really nice even though it was so simple to make. The potato did kind of disappear on reheating but I didn't mind because it made the stew thicker which I really liked. I can't peel potatoes due to nerve problems in my hand and I figured I could just not peel the potatoes and see what happens if I toss them in in small pieces. Turns out just fine! 🙂

I love your food videos and that soup and bread looked delicious. A bit more, I don't write well in the middle of the night. I have an electric pressure cooker and I also love it. Hearing about the differences in flour in Canada and the UK was a bit of an eye opener. Here, all-purpose flour has a high enough gluten content to make bread. I didn't realize that in other countries, all purpose flour has a lower gluten content.

There is something very satisfying about using up those last bits of things. You do save money I guess, but there's something else about it that soothes the soul.

Lovely video as always. There's always something extremely satisfying about pulling a meal out of whatever you happen to have left at home (whether it's because you don't wanna risk going outside or you're like me sometimes and just don't really feel like going out that day). Also the crust on that bread sounded incredible!

I think your channel, more than any I've habitually watched, has taught me the intrinsic value and skill that can be cultivated with experimentation and thrift. Truly, some of my own favorite creations came about from me taking what I had and trying something new!

10:30 Was not expecting the Challah braiding technique! Goes well with the chicken soup I suppose

The water looked a bit cloudy, mate

As a 25 year old I can't honestly say I hope one day I meet my "jenny" and can be as wholesome and authentic as shrimp! I love this channel so much!

This month was rougher for me so I had to resort to making a similar "just throw everything in a pot" kind of soup. Just two chunks of old but frozen fish, lots of carrots, shallots and red onions (everything cut in bigger chunks) + added some alphabet noodles at the end. It ended up tasting pretty good for what it was, but I think I could have done a lot better too. These type of recipes are always so fascinating to me since you can create so many servings out of essentially ingredients that would otherwise not contribute much to a dish (overripe veggies and leftover pieces)

I love your work, shrimp. I've gotten overexcited and commented before watching the video, so I don't really have anything interesting to say.

That comment about celeriac being unknown kinda weirded me out. In my country (Poland) celeriac is staple vegetable for any stock, soup or stew, while on the other hand celery is mostly unknown and very seldom used.

I love the concept of no fuss cooking. I believe I could actually make this meal, which is something very wonderful. I'd have to find some marmite and try it, but I'm looking forward to recreating it. Thanks for another great one A.S. 👍

I tend to get large amounts of food at one time....a bussel of tomatoes or peppers or celery or other veggies. Because of this, I can the tomatoes, and for all other veggies, I run two dehydrators to preserve the food and whatever I can't dehydrate in enough time will go in the freezer. Dehydrated food takes up less space and works really well in soups and stews and they are fast (already cut) and in the pressure cooker, hydrate well. The only thing you have to do is remember that you need extra water for them to rehydrate. Love your recipes. By the way, I think dried mushrooms that are rehydrated taste better than fresh.

This video makes me feel cozy. As if being locked up inside and forced to cook with what is left.

18:26 Ha!🤣 I live with "cold butter people" and every time I make toast I do this with my butter. A bit relieved to see I'm not the only one.

Lovely fun getting to see you cook something, especially without a plan ahead of time outside of "use what you have," a joy from start to finish! I agree with some of the other comments regarding new and interesting challenges in terms of your cooking/meal prepping videos, but this relative low effort exercise was charming, inspiring, and a lot of fun. Keep it up, your channel is one of the few I search every morning to see if there's something new!

The cooked chicken bones thing is because when a dog or cat bites them (as they definitely will), the bones shatter into tiny splinters. These will be sharp enough to pierce their throat, stomach, intestines, and basically any other part of their GI tract. As for what to do with them, if you have a BIG freezer (and I'd recommend everyone who makes soup regularly to have one) you can toss them in a ziplock bag and freeze them. Along with other bones from meals (if you are only cooking for one, you can even use wings and fried chicken bones) and even carcasses. Because there's always room in the stockpot for more! Other things to freeze: anything not in the brassica family. Offcuts of tomatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, peppers, celery-it's all fine to freeze and use in a stock pot later to make stock. And, finally, what do you do when you inevitably have 15L of stock in your freezer? Use it to replace water in just about everything! Cooking rice/lentils/soup? Use stock!

Steaming refreshes stale bread wonderfully, in my experience. Lovely loaf you have there!

I'm wearing headphones and that bread slicing shivered right down my spine 🤤

As long as you have water and onions you can always count on soup to keep you well fed. Anything else is just a bonus. Loved the video, the braiding you did with the bread is awesome. Looks cool and gives the bread a nice texture.

These are always the best videos, it's something everyone can do and it's very relatable.

I like your 5:3 flour:water ratio its a really good starting point and easy to rememnber

Such a comforting channel. Thank you.

LOVE the addition of beer to this soup! One thing I like to do is to chop the chicken pieces straight down the middle to cross-halve the bones -- but just once with a very sharp knife so you don't splinter them. It's my shortcut to get all that good marrow without having to make a traditional stock. Skim at your own discretion; I personally like the fat. I love that you've included Eva's portion during the cooking process! I miss so very much sharing these things with my dog. There was a time I'd split open the bones and tediously scrape them like vanilla beans over his dinner.😅He was a beagle and would howl the entire time. More than anything, I miss his song.

Here in Slovakia I feel we use celeriac more often than celery in soups. Beef or Chicken soup always has some in it.

Just noticed you're at nine hundred thousand subs. It gives me a great deal of faith in humanity that this channel is so popular and growing. Thanks for the content.

I'd be really interested to see you do a food challenge with just tinned/dried foods; basically a selection of foods that someone visiting a food pantry might be likely to receive, and see what sort of dishes you can come up with them with maybe just a minor addition of store cupboard staples. Maybe also set yourself a restriction that each dish can't take more than 30 minutes to prepare- any thing you might feel would make it more interesting for you! You're a very inventive and resourceful cook, and as well as being an interesting restriction it could also end up creating some useable suggestions for people experiencing food poverty for ways to use food which is often characterised by its lack of variation, taste and nutrition, and make it more interesting.

Put the chicken skins in a pan with bread crumbs, fry until crisp and golden, top the soup with thrm. Yum!

The master of minimalism. Brushing with water I love it.

I very much appreciate videos like this. All too often, we have fresh ingredients that we wait too long and they go bad. Being able to watch a video like this where you just throw a bunch of things together before they go bad or they are going bad and you still use them is very helpful to me in figuring out what we can and cannot use.

the bread sounded so nicely!

This is my favourite style of food. I call it the "End of the cupboard" dinner.

That soup is crying out for some dumplings!!

Thank you.. I just love off the cuff recipe ideas.. just using what you have on hand is something so many of us have to do.. and generally they turn out better than following some complicated recipe.

When I saw the beer go in, I let out a cheer! Always good to add beer to food.

A few tips as a pressure cooker user: 1: Make mashed potatoes in a pressure cooker. It's by far the best way to do them in terms of time, cost, flavor, and even nutrition (potato has a lot of vitamin C, but most cooking methods destroy it or leave it in water) which will quickly become the biggest use of your pressure cooker. I prefer Yukon Gold (the best thing to come out of Canada since John Garand), though lots of good mashing potatoes exist. 2: if you're using alcohol anyways, fry the biological seasonings (essentially everything but salts) in some cooking fat, then add the booze. Blooming spices is key to maximum flavor in liquid/semi-liquid dishes. 3: Look up "Rangiri". It's a very quick and easy method of cutting roughly cylindrical vegetables (like carrots and parsnips) that makes a lot of roughly even spoon sized vegetable chunks. 4: Electric pressure cookers don't reach as many atmospheres as a normal, stovetop, one. This will become noticible once you get into more advanced cooking.

You done brilliant, shows the importance of using what we have. Both the soup and bread looked superb. 👏 👏

Nice rustic meal. Great video thanks for sharing.

I didn't want to watch these videos at first, but now that I gave them a chance - I really like them! Good for listening while I do other things!

this is exactly the kind of cooking we should be teaching in schools- Any veg, Any meat, Some flavour add-ins and there's several hearty and fairly balanced meals

as a owner of not very dry kitchen myself can tell you one - make a friend with all kind of air tight container ;) I see you already put flour in those :) I put almost everything loose in container if I'll don't use it in a week or two ;) PS. I love my pressure cooker too - so convenient!

Love these type of videos! Cheers fella

Thanks Mike. I love these videos. Over the last couple of years, they've really given me the confidence to 'invent' my own dishes using my slow cooker or stock pot on the hob, using whatever ingredients I have in the kitchen. I'm going to try growing my own herbs this year too, using a windowsill kit my son got me for Christmas.

Atomic Shrimp: Making videos you didn't know you were desperate to see until you watch them.

I've been having an excellent time with just about every Atomic Shrimp video lately. He's distantly reminiscent of Kevan Brighting as "The Narrator" - well-mannered, informative, and just the slightest bit wittier than one would expect. Absolutely phenomenal content

Great idea! I've done this many times over the years, usually with excellent results. Simple cooking is almost always delicious, provided I get the seasoning right.

My dad would often don the apron and tall white hat and have a go at making bread. It would either be huge and like cotton wool with tethers need to avoid it floating away, or would have the consistency of a house brick and would be used to put in the windows of the local jeweller. Undaunted, he would eat more than 95% of both varieties.

one thing i would like to add about the soup. if you do store it. make sure that you let it cool down completely first. if you put it in a container and close the lid. it will go sour really quickly

I love these videos. You explain the process so well. The trouble is I want to go and eat some big soup and some crusty bread now.

Ahhh so lovely to watch your new video on a Saturday. Now inspired to cobble together a bits n bobs soup myself this weekend. Thanks from North Wales

Yay! It’s my favorite type of video, a “minimalist” challenge. You’re always so creative wether it’s for the better or the worse, lol. Keep up the great work.

Darn those genetically modified chickens... Three thighs and one drumstick, what an abomination!

This is how I cook lol my daughter come in and asked what I was cooking and I said no idea and she we shocked I cook every day like that

Thank you, as always for these videos. Im almost done with your backlog, but will have to re-watch a few things because i have fallen asleep 😅 Having moved to a bigger city and making ends meet before i have a proper paycheck has been very important. I can get produce year around much cheaper, but I want to make sure I keep my food soendong under control. Your constant inspiration for meals for rhe dollar conscious consumer (what I call struggle meals) has opened my eyes to more ideas kn what to do to expand my menu (I am also a picky eater and can find it hard to make different meals and then i get bored and may make less wallet and waistline friendly choices).

You are making what I call "Refrigerator Soup or Stew". Great way to clean out the fridge or freezer