As Winter rushes out as quickly as it arrived and Spring is feeling more like Summer, there is still time for soup in our home, especially as cold and flu season regains some momentum. There is nothing more comforting than soup when your nose is stuffed or your throat feels scratchy. This past week we decided to embrace a different soup for dinner over the course of 3 nights (that’s how long it took for my family to start to feel normal again). As far as chicken noodle, we decided with this feature to do a mainly vegetarian approach the soups. You could use chicken broth, that’s entirely up to you, but the vegetable broth adds the right amount of flavor to each of these just as well.
First up was Tomato soup. This has always been my go to soup for any occasion and when burdened with a stuffed nose, the antioxidants in the tomatoes along with the vitamin ‘c’ could be a better cold buster. We found this fabulous recipe by Izy Hossack from Top with Cinnamon’s cookbook full of sweet and savory dishes. This soup comes with an amazing garlic + pizzette but for our feature this week, we’re concentrating on the soups.
Tomato Soup
Ingredients:
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 ½ tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. plain (all-purpose) flour
8-½ fl oz. or 1 cup almond (or other non-dairy milk)
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. pepper
a handful of fresh basil leaves
3 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp. granulated sugar
2 – 14 oz. cans tomatoes
17 fl oz. or 2 cups vegetable stock
In a large saucepan, cook the onion with half the oil over medium heat until translucent. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute. Gradually stir in the milk until incorporated. Stir in the rest of the soup ingredients and use a hand-held emersion blender to blitz until smooth. (Or pour into blender and blend until smooth). Simmer on stovetop for 20 minutes, stirring it occasionally.
For our next soup recipe, we chose a simple and easy make black bean soup that my daughter absolutely loves. I love it too because on nights where she’s playing basketball after school, the prep doesn’t take a lot and dinner can be on the table in a flash.
Quick & Easy Black Bean Soup
Ingredients:
1-½ cups of Water
3 cups of Black Beans (1 ½ – 2 – 14 oz. cans) + a bit of the liquid in the can
1 tsp. Apple Cider Vinegar
¾ tsp. dried minced garlic
¾ tsp. dried onion flakes (or more to taste)
¾ tsp. ground cumin
1-½ cubes of low sodium Not-Chick’n Bouillon Cubes
In a powerful blender, add water followed by the beans, spices, apple cider and bouillon cubes. Blend until smooth and free of lumps. IF too thick, add additional water. Heat on stovetop until desired temperature is reached. You may garnish with shredded cheddar cheese, a dollop of plain Greek yogurt or cilantro or serve plain. This is a great soup for lunch as well which you can pair with homemade corn bread!
Our last but not least favorite veggie soup comes from Dr. Junger’s book CLEAN. It’s the Creamy Cauliflower Bisque soup that you can find here where we previously posted it. This one is a mainstay in our house as it’s both filling and delicious.
Hopefully this keeps us all healthy for a while as it feels like it’s time to hit the ocean over here on the west coast! Stay tuned for more recipes this month as well as a few other features to lead us into the Easter holidays!
Photos: Kelly Norris Sarno
