Eat More Soup: Easy soup recipe

Soup is easy to make and is full of vitamins, nutrients and antioxidants that will fuel your day and help you trim up your waistline. It is a great way to control your hunger and keep you energized and anyone can make it with a few simple ingredients.

The powerful thing about homemade soup is that you are in control of the sodium and flavor. Soup is a great "appetizer" and can prevent over eating as well. Often times, we get home and are ravished and starving hungry. This is when we eat everything in sight, hand-over-fist, right? Having a pot of soup ready to re-heat is a great first course while you are making your main dish. Allowing time in between your first course and second course can also prevent over eating.

Here is one of my all-time favorite soup recipes. The key to great flavor is fresh ingredients. You can change any recipe to suit your tastes and rotate often to keep your palate interested.  I prefer to make my own vegetable broth but you can buy it too. I suggest Pacific Organic. You can make the broth ahead of time or in larger batches and use for multiple recipes throughout the week.

Cyn's Favorite Minestrone Soup

1 T. Olive Oil
1 medium yellow onion
1 cup of chopped carrots
1 cup chopped celery
1 dried bay leaf
1 large can chopped tomatoes
1 cup of cannelloni beans 
1 cup garbanzo beans
1 small bunch kale chopped
1 bunch rainbow chard chopped
8 cups of vegetable stock (recipe to follow)
Salt and Pepper

Add 1 T. olive oil to dutch oven or large soup pot on medium to medium high heat. Saute onions, carrots and celery for about three minutes or just until tender and flavors meld. Sprinkle with kosher salt and freshly cracked pepper. Add dried bay leaf. Stir. Continue to cook 2 more minutes.  Add tomatoes and stir to combine. Sprinkle with salt. Let cook for 2-3 minutes. Add cannelloni and garbanzo beans and continue to stir. Add vegetable stock, turn heat to high and bring to a boil. Once soup begins to boil reduce heat to simmer and add chopped kale. Sprinkle with salt and add pepper. Remember, adding a little salt at a time will bring out the flavors in each layer of the soup. If you use regular salt instead of kosher, use less. Be cautious not to add too much. If you do, it's not a big deal. You can dilute it with water.

After soup comes to a simmer, add chopped chard and continue to cook on simmer for a few minutes or until chard has wilted. Sprinkle with fresh parmigiana cheese and freshly cracked black pepper. Serve immediately.

Basic Vegetable Stock
1T. Olive Oil
1/2 small yellow onion chopped
1 medium yellow onion cleaned with skin left on
1 small bunch carrots roughly chopped or left whole
2 stalks of celery (the greener in color, the better the flavor)
1 large dried bay leaf
salt
pepper
dried thyme
8 cups water

Add 1 T. Olive oil to dutch oven or large pot. add 1/2 c. chopped onion, carrots and celery. Allow to cook on medium-high heat for 3 minutes. Add bay leaf and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook 2 more minutes stirring occasionally allowing vegetables to brown on bottom of the pan. Add water and whole onion with skin on. The skin will make the broth a beautiful golden color. Stir and add a small amount of dried thyme to taste. Stir and bring to a boil. Boil for a few minutes and reduce heat to simmer adding salt and pepper to taste. Add to any recipe that calls for broth.

****If you absolutely can not find an ounce of time to make your own, you can find pre-made options that are available as well. Make sure that you read the label for all natural ingredients. In general, with anything pre-made, you will compromise taste for time.