My cupboard, fridge, and freezer looked really full; so, for a few weeks I did limited to no grocery shopping. Toward the end of the cleaning-out-the-cabinets process, I was left with the ingredients to try a recipe from the Vegetarian 5-ingredient Gourmet. I thought I could get away with using the frozen corn in my freezer and the canned Hunt's tomatoes in the cabinet that I was stuck with after our educational experience with the pasta taste test. The concept was really good, but Paul's comment solved any question as to whether or not the soup was good. He said "It still tastes like canned tomatoes." Therefore, this recipe goes down in my notes as being one where canned tomatoes cannot replace the fresh tomatoes in the recipe. I'm inclined to think the corn is the same way.

I served the soup with puff pastries stuffed with veggie-meat and some seasoned carrots.

Cost to Make Tomato Corn Soup

• $0.50 Tomato, canned (Publix, buy one get one free)
• $0.25 Corn
• $0.18 Onion (Costco)
• $0.11 Olive Oil (Publix, buy one get one)
• $0.16 Parsley (Publix)
• $1.20 Total

It's tough to price the puff pastries. The sheets come frozen from the Pepperidge Farm Thrift Store for about $2.40, but I only use half the box. Then, I use about 1/3 a can of veggie meat, which comes from Publix for about $4.99. I bought mine on sale and don't know what the price was. I diced 1/4 of an onion and was generous with onion and garlic powders and Italian seasoning. So, an estimated price is $3.56. I will be more diligent in collecting such facts in the future.