Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!

It's that time of year, again. That blessed season when a woman's heart turns toward ... soup.

Today, I made two stockpots full of soup using all sorts of vegetable goodness. My plan is to freeze most of the soup in 1 cup servings to create easy grab-and-go meals, but a lot depends on whether I retain self control or break down and face plant in one of the stock pots. As Garfield is to lasagne, so am I to a good vegetable soup.

Green Bean & Tomato Soup
7 cups of low-sodium vegetable broth 
1 cup small pasta bowties  
½ instant rice 
1 large carrot, diced 
2 celery stalks, diced 
8 oz green beans, trimmed and cut into ½ inch pieces 
1 cup canned crushed tomatoes 
Ground pepper 
McCormick Salt Free Garlic & Herb Seasoning 
Dried parsley 

Bring broth to boil, add pasta and simmer 5 minutes. Add carrot and celery. Simmer 5 minutes more. Add beans, parsley, tomatoes, salt free seasoning, and instant rice. Cook 5-10 minutes longer or until rice is done and beans are tender.

A pretty good fast soup, but a little bland. Maybe, more tomato and less broth next time? The Husband thought it tasted "a little weird," but could not describe "weird" so caveat epulo?

Vegetable Soup for a Crowd

1 T olive oil 
8 medium carrots, thinly sliced (used mandolin) 
2 onions, chopped 
4 celery stalks, chopped 
1 red bell pepper, chopped 
2 T bottled minced garlic 
28 oz can crushed tomatoes 
15 oz can diced tomatoes, undrained 
4 cups low-sodium vegetable broth 
½ small head of cabbage, chopped 
2 cups frozen green beans 
2 cups frozen peas 
1 cup frozen corn 
15 oz can chickpeas (garbanzos), drained and rinsed 
2 small bay leaves 
1 envelope Lipton Recipe Secrets Vegetable soup mix 
Dried parsley
Ground pepper 

Heat olive oil. Add carrots, onion, celery, bell pepper and garlic. Sauté 7 minutes. Stir in all remaining ingredients. Let simmer 1 hour. Remove bay leaf. I purposely made this dish more stew-like than soup-like, because that's what I like. You could make it more soupy by adding broth or water.

Of the two soups I made, "Vegetable Soup for a Crowd" was far and above the best. Rich, tomato-y, and redolent of garlic ... this is the soup I am most likely to face plant in.

Both recipes were (heavily) adapted from Reader's Digest The Ultimate Soup Cookbook (Reader's Digest, 2007). This is an excellent cookbook and I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in getting into soups. There are over 900 recipes in this cookbook and they all sound delicious. Can't wait to try "Cabbage and Carrot Soup" or "Bean and Barley Chili!"

Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

Poetry for Young People: Lewis Carroll (Sterling Publishing, 2000)