Trader Joe's 17 Bean and Barley Soup

You may be thinking that I'm obsessed with dried beans these days. And you may be right. Actually, I bought this dried bean soup mix a while ago from Trader Joe's, and was waiting for bell peppers to get to a reasonable price before I made the soup. At last, today bell peppers were on sale for $2/pound at the co-op, so today was the day for soup! I don't understand why this soup, clearly made for winter, calls for bell peppers, but so it goes.

2 cups TJ's Bean and Barley Soup Mix (why the bag provides about 3 cups of soup mix I'm not sure)
64 oz vegetable broth (made mine from scratch, not sure exactly how much I ended up using)
1 cup onion, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
1 cup carrot, chopped
1 cup bell pepper, chopped
1 tsp dried basil
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 can TJ's canned tomatoes (I used about 15 oz of a can of crushed tomatoes)
salt and pepper to taste

Soak beans overnight in a large pot of water, then rinse and drain. Pour 4 cups of broth into the pot with the beans. In a separate pan cook onion, celery, carrot, pepper, basil and garlic in olive oil until soft. Combine this mixture with the remaining ingredients into the bean pot and cover with more broth. Simmer covvered for about 1 hour to desired tenderness. Be sure to occasionally check liquid level and add more broth if necessary. Salt and pepper to desired taste. Makes about 8 hearty servings.


Aren't these beans beautiful?


I tried to convince Karen that the beans themselves looked lovely, even before cooking. Believe me now?


This soup is fine. Not great, not bad. Good bean and veggie soup, nothing fancy. I added a dollop of sour cream to mine, which was great. I think it took a bit more than an hour before the beans were soft -- I actually was worried for a while that they would not cook completely and I would have to fish the hard beans out of the soup, but it ended up okay in the end.

Rainy Day Soup - Vegetarian Style!

This soup is one of my specialties, one meal I can make without a recipe every time, the one I pull out when friends are sick or the weather outside is frightful. I wanted to make it for a group of friends last week when a few were getting sick, but the original version, which I swiped and adapted from Weight Watchers, calls for chicken sausage and chicken broth.

Now the broth I'd be happy to switch out for veggie, but the chicken sausage in this recipe is crucial. The spicy flavor of the soup comes directly from the andouille flavoring in the sausage, and without it, the entire soup would be land and would lack that kick that makes it a good healing soup. I wanted to make a vegetarian version, but didn't think I could find an acceptable sausage replacement.

But behold! The local co-op serves us well. I found a vegetarian chipotle sausage to use for the soup. It's a big grainier than the chicken version, and waaaay spicier. I usually add some hot sauce at the end, but this version didn't need it at all.






1 yellow onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 pkg spicy andouille or chipotle sausage, chicken or veggie (usually comes 4-5 sausages to a pack), sliced in thin rounds
6 cups or so of broth
1 baking potato
1 bag baby spinach
hot sauce, optional

Add the onion to a soup pot and cook on medium-high until it gets soft. Add the garlic, cook for a minute or two.

Add the sausage until it is browned in some places.

Add the broth. Don't need to boil, just get it really hot.

Once the broth is hot, remove the skin from the potato and grate the potato directly into the soup, using the smallest grating option. (This is the amazing part of the soup -- the potato melts and gets kind of creamy!)

Once the potato has melted a bit, add the spinach to the broth. Let it wilt a bit.

Serve!

You can add salt and pepper along the way too, I'm just never sure how much I add.