Most canned tomatoes are canned in tomato juice. When a recipe calls for you use drained canned tomatoes, reserve the juice for another purpose if it is not called for in the recipe. You can freeze the juice in a quart sized zip type freezer bag to be used for a soup or you can do as I do and make a quick Bloody Mary out of it or put it in my dogs empty dish as a healthy vitamin drink for them (this may not be to all dogs tastes, but mine love it).

When you get home from the grocery store and unpack your bunch of celery, cut the tops off and put them in a zip type freezer bag before you store the rest of the celery in your celery keeper (yes, I actually have a celery keeper). Put the tops in the freezer and save them for future soup stocks. I use a gallon size bag so that I can add to it at a later time.

When cleaning green onions I like to keep about 4 inches or so of the green part attached (the green part is where most of the nutrients are and they add color to a recipe). I do cut off the shabby ends of the green and of course the roots. If you saved celery tops in a zip type freezer bag, open it up and add the shabby green ends and onion roots. Return the bag to the freezer to use for future soup stocks.

More about your soup stock freezer bag: You can also add carrot peels, regular onion skins and fresh parsley stems. Along with the celery tops and green onion scraps, these are the main ingredients of any basic soup stock and will finally be discarded to your compost bin when you strain your stock.

Chicken, turkey, ham, beef, lamb and pork bones can also be frozen in zip type freezer bags to be used for a later soup stock. Freeze these meat items separately from the vegetable stock items and from each other. There is no need to thaw any of the above frozen ingredients. Just dump them into a soup pot and just cover with cold water. Add some thyme leaves, some peppercorns and a few bay leaves and allow to simmer for 2 to 3 hours. Strain and you have a nice beginning broth for soup or sauces.