I try to keep my pantry stocked with canned food, my refrigerator stocked with fresh food and my freezer stocked with frozen food. I also keep a supply of dehydrated foods on hand. I like dried onions because they are easy to add to soups and stews and they will take the place of fresh onions if I do not have any. Sometimes I do not want to use a whole green or red pepper so I can just use a teaspoon of the dried ones instead.

I package my own soup for one in ziploc bags. They do not take up a lot of space and it only takes about 10-20-minutes to prepare a quick lunch, depending on what kind of soup I want. All the chopping, cutting and measuring is already done for me and I do not have to worry about a half of a pepper or onion spoiling in the refrigerator. Besides that I did not pay an arm and a leg for a couple cups of soup. I win all the way by saving money, time and effort.

For chicken soup I put enough dried vegetables in a ziploc bag to make a quart of soup. I put onions, diced carrots, celery and egg noodles. To make soup I heat up a quart of home made chicken stock and simmer the vegetables for about 10-minutes or until the noodles are done. If I have some leftover chicken I add it to the soup.

For beef flavored vegetable soup I put carrots, onions, celery, cabbage, diced potatoes, diced dried tomatoes and peas. I heat up a quart of beef stock and simmer for 10-minutes. You can use any combination of dried vegetables you want and add leftover meat to it or rice or noodles. Easy to do and no preservatives!