Belly of the Beest

Vegetable Soup

As some of you guys might know, I go through periods of time where I worry that I’m not getting enough protein, enough, fruit, enough veggies, enough calcium/dairy, etc. This past week, I got a little concerned that I wasn’t getting enough vegetables. I know that sounds crazy because I’m a vegetarian, but I felt like I was mostly eating oats, cornmeal, wheat, all kinds of delicious grains, but they lacked for veggie content, obviously. I always struggle in the winter to make dishes that have a variety of vegetables and that can be served multiple times in a week. After surveying the contents of the frig and deep freeze I made two awesome soups from stuff we had on hand! The first one was a mushroom rice soup and the second was a tomato based vegetable soup that featured leftovers from the noodle party.

The beautiful thing about both the soups was there wasn’t really a recipe, just throwing stuff in until it tasted right, but here is a list of ingredients and the order I added them so you can use it as a jumping off point for your own soups!

Mushroom Rice Soup

Mushroom Rice Soup – Makes 6-8 servings and takes about an hour to an hour and a half depending on how fast you chop your vegetables and how soft you like your rice.

Onion

Garlic

½-1 c rice mix (wildrice and white—depends on how much soup you want or how thick)

3 or 4 carrots

2-3 parsnips

1-2 C mushrooms

3-4 C veggie broth

4 stalks of celery

herbs: celery salt, white pepper, black pepper, and a little red chili

Start by sautéeing the onions and garlic in butter until fragrant then add the carrots, parsnips, mushrooms and celery. After a few minutes add the broth and the rice. Simmer over low heat until the rice is tender.

If the broth gets soaked up by the rice just add more and adjust your spices. Peas probably would have been good in this too, but I didn’t have any in the frig.

Vegetable Soup –This made about 12 servings and took about 2 hours with prep and cook time.

5 bags of tomato puree (about 10 cups)

Onion

Garlic

3 or 4 carrots

2-3 parsnips

4 stalks of celery

1-1 1/2 Cups Kidney Beans

1-1 ½ Cups Chick Peas

2 Cups corn

2 Cups of cooked noodles

For Seasoning

Basil

Marjoram

Oregano

Onion powder

Garlic powder

Rosemary

Thyme

If you are using canned beans just throw them in the soup, but if you are using dried beans, make sure they are mostly cooked before throwing them in with the rest of the soup or you will over cook the vegetables while you try to get the beans to soften up.

Start by sautéeing  the onions, garlic, carrots, celery and parsnips. Then add the tomato puree. Let that simmer for awhile and then add the beans, chickpeas, corn and noodles. Simmer until all the flavors have come together, about an hour.

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