White Bean Soup

Sorry, no picture.

Again, it's yummy, but fugly.

Since the Cuban Black Bean Soup was a success, I decided to try a white bean soup recipe.

Plus, I'm now officially on a soup kick. For several reasons.

It's cold and has been snowing. A lot. So, I need something warm and comforting & filling but not fattening.

My team at work is moving to a new facility, which does not have a cafe. Not that I ever eat there very much, but when I do, I can at least get something healthy & vegetarian. The facility that I'm going to only has sub shops and fast food joints in the area. Neither or which are healthy nor vegetarian.

Try going into Subway & ordering a sandwich, but hold the meat please, and see what kind of nasty looks you get.

I am NOT HAPPY about going to the new place. Really. Not. Happy. But, it's a job, and considering I'm in the financial industry, I'm just thankful I still have a job at all. So, I'm trying not to complain.

My solution to this little problem is to make several batches of soup, freeze it, and bring it into work for lunch.

Yesterday I made White Bean Soup, but I'm planning on also making a batch of Spinach Potato Soup & Ginger Carrot Soup this weekend as well. That way I'll have about 2 weeks worth of soup ready to go. And the best thing about it, is that soup is super cheap to make. Generally speaking, the ingredients are stuff I already have in my kitchen & usually only need to get one or two things. Plus, it makes several meals, so I feel like I'm really getting my moneys worth. It's definitely cheaper than buying a can of soup or two for the same price. Also, I know exactly whats in it. I made it, so everything in the soup is something good. No preservatives, no meat products and made totally to my own liking.

So heres the recipe I used & it came out great. Its a mish-mash of several different recipes but it came out very tasty. I made this in my crockpot & let is simmer over night. Then put it all in the blender when I got up this morning.

Ingredients:

2 Tbs Olive Oil
1/2 a yellow onion
1 shallot
5 cloves of garlic
4 cups vegetable stock
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 stalks of celery
1 bag of dried white beans
1/2 cup water
salt, black pepper and red pepper to taste.


Turn the crockpot on High & cover the bottom with the olive oil chop the onion, shallot, garlic & celery and put into the crock pot add the red pepper and cook until translucent, stirring occassionally.

Add the vegetable stock and white beans.

Stir occassionally.

Cook until beans are soft, add the water, lemon juice, salt and pepper then blend on low
(if you have a food processor, then you can probably do this all at once, but I just have a blender so I had do it in small batches)

Garnish with thyme and serve
(or put into containers and freeze)