I heart soup

Originally posted on Life Of T October 27, 2010. Making this today!

I have a thing with soup. I want it all the time.

In the past week, it seems like the temperatures have dropped because I am always freezing. This seems to kick off my soup obsession that continues until about June.

I think this stems from when I was younger and soup was the one thing I could make myself when I didn’t like what my family was eating. This was pretty much every day. I used to be an extremely picky eater. Now I like almost everything except sushi and some seafood.

When I was younger, I loved to eat canned soup, usually vegetable and my special occasion soup was Campbell’s Vegetable mixed with Lipton Chicken Noodle. If you haven’t tried this before, you must. Especially if you’ve gotten hit with a lovely fall cold.

However with the exception of my special occasion soup, I find I am so not into canned soup anymore! I absolutely love making homemade soup, especially since you can make a big batch and have soup every day for a week. If you’re like me, that’s perfect!

One of my favourite things about soup is that it can be so good for you depending on the ingredients. For me, it’s the best way to get veggies in!

My go-to recipe is one I found in Oxygen magazine years ago and it’s a super-clean recipe!

(I apologize for the picture quality, I always forget to take a photo when I cook it so I took a photo of the magazine.)

Healthy Hodgepodge Soup

Ingredients:

Canola Cooking Spray
1 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup chopped cerly
1/2 cup chopped carrots
2 minced garlic cloves
1/2 tsp ground black pepper, divided
pinch kosher salt
1 1/2 cups water
5 cups low sodium chicken broth
1 28oz can crushed tomatoes
2 tsp tomato paste (which I never remember to buy, tastes fine without it)
1/2 cup finely chopped green beans
4 bay leaves
1/4 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1 cup uncooked whole wheat ziti
1/2 cup canned great northen beans (drained and rinsed)-(I always use white kidney beans, I can never find great northern beans)
2 cups chopped escarole (also difficult to find, I found it at superstore but tastes fine without it)1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup fresh italian flat leaft parsley chopped


Instructions:
1. Spray large non-stick skillet with cooking spray. On medium-high heat, saute onions, celery, carrots,garlic, 1/4 tsp pepper and salt for about 8 minutes
2. In a large pot, add broth, water, canned tomatoes, tomato paste, green beans, bay leaves, basil, oragano, remaining pepper and saute mixture. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 25 minutes.
3. After 25 minutes add pasta, beans, escarole, balsamic vinegar and parsley. Cover and simmer for 10-15 more minutes. Vegetables should be slightly soft and pasta should be cooked through. Remove bay leaves.

Enjoy!

Tips & Bonus Information

This soup is soo easy to substitute anything you want! I like to switch up my whole wheat pasta shapes to keep it interesting. You can used crushed tomatoes or diced if you like chunks of tomatoes in your soup. You can add different veggies, like chunks of potatoes. I also tried a variation of this soup in my slowcooker and it tasted fantastic!

I'd also like to try adding ground turkey at some point!

Nutritional Info:

Calories: 169, Total Fats: 2g, Sodium 362 mg, Total carbohydrates: 34g, Dietary fibre 9g, Sugars 4g, Protein 7g, Iron 1mg

Yield: Makes 10 servings.
Cooking Time: 1 hour 10 minutes total