My first goal was accomplished--create a healthy vegetarian soup for lunch and freeze the remainder for lunches during the week. The soup is so tasty, and healthy too, that even my husband wants to take some to work this week.
Roasted Vegetable Soup With Cannelini Beans
I made this soup in my "6 quart Hamilton Beach 6 quart set and forget programmable slow cooker". I highly recommend it, check Amazon for details.
I started the soup early in the morning after my coffee and it was ready by lunch. Leftovers are frozen to take to work for the week. The recipe is quite forgiving, roast whatever veggies you wish, making sure you have some root veggies included.
Yield: makes at least six generous servings
Canola oil spray
3 medium carrots, sliced about ½ inch
2 large tomatoes (I used yellow heirloom, and scraped out
some of the seeds)
1 large onion, sliced about ¼ inch
Half of a large butternut squash, cut in ½ cubes
2 Japanese eggplant, sliced about ½ inch
1 zucchini, sliced about ½ inch (I used baby zucchini and
Pattypan squash)
4 large or six regular cloves of garlic, unpeeled
4 cups or more low sodium chicken or veggie broth
( I like to use Imagine in the tetrapak)
3 large fresh sprigs of thyme (from my garden J)
2 bay leaves (from the store, wish I could grow it L)
1 15 oz. can Utopia organic diced tomatoes—low salt
1 Tablespoon of Herbes de Provence (Costco)
About 2 teaspoons Malabar pepper (Costco)
Finally,
1 15 ounce can of cannellini beans, drained
Preheat oven to 400°, or 375° convect. Line two rimmed cookie sheets with foil and spray with canola oil spray.
Arrange carrots, squash and garlic on one sheet drizzle lightly with olive oil and place in the preheated oven. (Diet tip: if watching calorie intake only drizzle the eggplant sheet with oil.)
Next, arrange tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini and onions on the other sheet, drizzle lightly with olive oil and put in the oven, once the other veggies have cooked for 15 min. Cook for another 15 min. and then check both cookie sheets, if veggies are browned and onions are soft then take them out. If not leave one or both sheets in until there is some browning.
Meanwhile, turn on the slow cooker to high and add all the stock, the tomatoes, the bay leaves, the thyme stalks, herbes de Provence and pepper.
Once veggies are browned add all, except the garlic to the slow cooker. Squeeze the roasted garlic out of the cloves and stir into the veggies. Cook on high for at least 2 hours.
After, 2 hours, the veggies should be fully cooked and the flavours melded.
Add the beans and bring back to a simmer, about 15– 20 min. At this point taste the stew and adjust seasonings, here are the options: add more pepper, add some salt (we watch our salt intake and thus, you may find the stew lacking in sodium.)
Or, this is what I did:
Add fresh herbs, just to the bowl of soup that you intend to increase flavour. I added torn up basil leaves, then more thyme.
If you wish, add a poached egg for more protein, A really cool way to do it, is to heat up your soup portion in a small saucepan until simmering, then crack an egg in the middle and poach until you reach your desired doneness. Carefully, pour/slide out the stew into the bowl.
So tasty and so healthy!
Once cooled, freeze the rest of the soup in portions ready for the week ahead.
This is a great start to my weight loss endeavours.
No comments:
Post a Comment