Now that the colder weather is upon us, soup is the new salad.
I've decided to make a big batch of soup early in the week. The idea is to have it on hand for hubby's lunches. He has taken a package of noodle soup and eaten half of it for years. Other than being loaded with sodium and packing 300+ calories, it didn't offer anything nutritionally speaking. It's time we changed that. As well, having a vegetable soup around is handy for my lunches and snacks.
So, today's featured soup is a recipe I got from the Maintainers Forum at 3FC. I call it Glory's Minestrone*.
Olive oil for sautéing
1 large onion, chopped
1 Tbsp minced garlic
3 cups low-fat low-sodium vegetable broth (I use bouillon cubes)
3 cups water
4-6 carrots (however many you happen to have, I used 6 last night), sliced into circles
2 cans Italian-style stewed tomatoes, NOT drained (if they have no-salt Italian style, bonus points)
2 Tbsp Italian seasoning blend
about 1/8 - 1/4 tsp black pepper (to taste)
pinches of whatever Italian spices you have on hand (I use a bit of oregano and thyme) to taste
1 cup uncooked whole wheat elbow macaroni
1 can no-salt-added cut green beans (sometimes I use fresh, you just have to add them earlier so they can cook in the broth) or 1 to 1 ½ cups frozen.
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed.
½ cup frozen corn
1. Heat the oil in a large stock pot (Dutch oven works well) over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic, sauté until onion is tender.
2. Add water, broth, and carrots, bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat, cook until the carrots can be pierced easily with a fork, about 5-8 minutes.
3. Add tomatoes and spices, bring back to a boil. Add elbow macaroni and cook as long as the package says to (usually 9-11 minutes), stirring occasionally (the macaroni WILL stick to the pan if you don't).
4. Add green beans, corn and kidney beans, cook until heated through.
*even though Glory didn't post the recipe, someone named "paperclippy" did that.
(I have also modified the amounts of the ingredients: it now has more green beans and less pasta. The picture shows the soup with the pasta originally called for. As you can see, two cups (uncooked) was just too much!)
Actually, the more I ponder this, the more I think I may just leave out the pasta altogether. It does tend to soak up all the liquid over the course of the week. On the other hand, I do love the taste of pasta and beans together.
3 comments :
Looks yummy!
If this is to last a week, I'm with you on omitting the pasta entirely. I have painful memories of a long-ago large batch of soup with pasta where the pasta got gummy and bloated long before the soup was finished.
If you like the pasta- cook the pasta and keep it seperate in another container. In the morning you can add the pasta to the soup. You can cook about 3 days worth of pasta plain and keep it in the fridge in a tupperware thingy.
I am adding progressively less and less pasta every time I make my favorite minestrone recipe. It just gets too weird. I like the separate pasta idea, then you never end up with noodle-heavy stew after your noodles suck up all the liquid.
Also I make a very similar soup but I also add in a cut up zucchini and a cut up yellow squash. It is a painless way to add more veggie girth, as it pretty much takes the flavor of the soup (you don't end up with zucchini-flavored soup, which might be good in another context, but not here).
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