Janet's Bean Soup with Roasted Veggies

Our friend Janet brought us this delicious bean soup that reminded me of my favorite childhood soup: Campbell's bean and bacon. I used to cook the condensed soup without adding in water then would add it to my ham, cheese, and potato chip sandwich. Sounds healthy, doesn't it? Now I can have this delicious alternative!

Ingredients:

• 1 pound dried navy beans, soaked overnight
  
• 2 boxes vegetable broth (about 30 oz or 3 3/4 cups)
  
• 1 onion chopped
• 3 large garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped (divided)

Directions:

1. Add beans, broth, onion, garlic, and 1 of the carrots to a crock pot and turn on low.
2. Cook until beans are soft, about 4.5 hours.
3. Remove from crock pot and add second chopped carrot.
   

What She Did:
Janet served the soup with shredded cheese, sour cream, and fresh roasted veggies. To make the veggies, she roasted 1 corn on the cob on the grill, and also put 2 jalepenos and two onion halves on the grill for a little flavor (but not to cook them). She then chopped those up with 2 tomatoes, some mushrooms, and some cilantro then put a squeeze of lime and a small shake of garlic salt over all of it.

She notes that she never makes exactly the same thing twice and often adds green chiles to the soup if she has them. She might not ever make this again, but we certainly will!

Special Diet Considerations:
The cheese and sour cream are available in rice varieties for those interested, but we haven't tried them in this soup.

Quinoa and Lentil Soup

Cynthia Mary was served this soup at Holy Theophany Monastery in Olympia, Washington and liked it enough to ask for the recipe. She kindly made it for us and it has been our little one's favorite meal all week.

Ingredients:

• 2 onions, sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic, diced
• Vegetable or olive oil for sautéing
  
• 4 cups of vegetable stock
  
• 2 cups of lentils
• 2/3 cups or more as desired of whole quinoa, thoroughly rinsed
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
  

Directions:

1. Brown the onions and garlic with the oil in a soup pot.
2. Add the broth, lentils, and quinoa and bring it to a boil.
3. Turn the soup down to a simmer and cook until tender (30-45 minutes).
4. Add the lemon juice and serve.

Further Information:
Quinoa (said keen-wah) has a light, fluffy texture when cooked, and its mild, slightly nutty flavor makes it an alternative to white rice or couscous. This complete protein source is also high in iron and calcium. To find out more about it, you can read here: http://chetday.com/quinoa.html (the rest of the site is unvetted).

This similar recipe adds carrots and rosemary to the mix. Here's a close-up of the quinoa:

Black-Eyed Pea Gumbo

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
• 5 stalks celery, chopped
• 2 cups vegetable stock
  
• 4 (15 ounce) cans black-eyed peas with liquid
• 2 (10 ounce) cans diced tomatoes and green chiles
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tsp Cajun seasoning
  
• 2 cups prepared rice (meaning 1 cup of uncooked rice that's been cooked)
  

Directions:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat, and cook the onion, pepper, and celery until tender.
2. Pour in the vegetable broth, black-eyed peas with liquid, diced tomatoes and green chiles, garlic, and spices.
3. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer 45 minutes, or until ready to serve.
4. Add water before serving if gumbo is too thick.
5. Serve gumbo over the rice. Enjoy!
   

What We Do:
You can cook the rice in the gumbo if you wish (don't add extra water and take it off when ready around the 45 minute mark), but we prefer to cook it separately because the amount of water is just right for having leftovers the next day. That means it is a little soupy on the first day, but we just pour some of the liquid out of the ladle before serving on the first day and can easily re-heat it the next day. We make our own broth with a vegan bouillon cube added to 2 cups of water. We left it on the stove simmering on very low heat all day. We served it with some cornbread muffins and green salad.

Special Diet Considerations:
If you're making this for a strict fast, the veggies can be cooked with a vegetable oil. I assume they could also just be added to the gumbo without sautéing, but haven't tried it.

Our family found this to be just the right amount of spice, but a visiting child considered it too spicy. If you have someone sensitive to spiciness, I'd recommend omitting some of the Cajun seasoning or replacing some of it with plain black pepper and/or replacing some of the tomatoes with chiles with plain diced tomatoes.

Source

Heddy's Black and Red Bean Soup

This fast and easy soup came out fabulously!


Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons maple syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 4 cups vegetarian vegetable broth
  
• 2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 (15.5 ounce) cans canned red beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 (15 ounce) can whole kernel corn, with liquid
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can crushed tomatoes, with liquid
  

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.
2. Add the onion, celery, carrots and garlic; cook and stir for a few minutes to release the flavors.
3. Season with maple syrup, cumin, chili powder, and black pepper.
4. Pour in the vegetable broth, black beans, 1 can of red beans, and corn. Bring to a boil.
5. Combine the other can of red beans and the crushed tomatoes in the container of a large food processor or blender. Process until smooth.
   
6. Pour the processed beans and tomatoes into the soup pot and stir to blend.
   
7. Reduce heat to medium, and simmer for 15 minutes. Then serve!

What We Do:
We used fire-roasted tomatoes and did not consider the soup spicy at all. We also used 4 vegetarian vegetable bouillon cubes with 4 cups of water as a broth substitute. You could make your own broth by cooking and straining veggies if you wanted. We left it on the stove simmering on very low heat all day, adding the celery toward the end. We'll add some barley next time for a full protein. We served it with some sweet cornbread.

Source

Lentil Soup

Here's a soup that will warm you up on these winter evenings. Pictured here before food processing it, the soup is thick and hearty.

Ingredients:
2 onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
6 cups water
1 cup red lentils
1 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained
1 (19 ounce) can cannellini beans
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup diced carrots
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 teaspoon garam masala
1.5 teaspoons ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions:
1. Saute the onions, garlic, and ginger in a little olive oil in a large pot for about 5 minutes.
2. Add the water, lentils, chick peas, white kidney beans, diced tomatoes, carrots, celery, garam masala, cardamom, cayenne pepper and cumin. Bring to a boil for a few minutes then simmer for 1 to 1.5 hours or longer, until the lentils are soft.
3. Puree half the soup in a food processor or blender. Return the pureed soup to the pot, stir and enjoy!

What We Do:
We put out all the ingredients and let the little one make this one. It is easy and delicious.

Tortilla Soup

Ingredients:
1 (19 ounce) can green enchilada sauce
1.5 cups water
1 cube vegetarian vegetable bouillon
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1 (15 ounce) can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 (15 ounce) can beans of your choice, drained and rinsed
1/2 (16 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 cup frozen corn
4 (6 inch) corn tortillas, torn into strips
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. In a pot, mix the enchilada sauce and water.
2. Dissolve the bouillon cube in the liquid.
3. Add garlic powder, chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper.
4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low.
5. Mix in the beans, tomatoes, and corn. Simmer until heated through.
6. Stir in cilantro and tortilla strips, and season with salt and pepper to serve.

What We Do:
We prefer medium heat green enchilada sauce. It gives it a nice warmth, but many children would find it too spicy.
We've used black beans, kidney beans, cannellini beans, and pinto beans for the second bean and all were good. We also tried Morning Star Farms' Chick'n Strips in it and thought it didn't add anything to the taste.
We've added celery when it will be cooking for a while and has time to soften up.

Special Diet Considerations:
Watch the packaged foods on this one as the bouillon and enchilada sauce in particular are likely to have hidden ingredients. I googled and found gluten-free bouillon and corn tortillas, so I'm tagging this as safe for celiacs.