Healthy Garden Vegetable Soup

Rain is a blessing! As I've gotten older, I've really started to enjoy overcast and rainy days....if we have rainy days for a long period of time, I do start to glare out the window and mutter rain complaints under my breath! Every once in awhile I'm completely happy with a nice rainy day though!

I feel I've been neglecting my recipe inventing, searching and just general cooking! I've been so wrapped up with family and our eBook that dinner hasn't always been my first thought. So as the afternoon drew to a close today and I realized I'm going to have whiny, hungry kids in a few minutes I started to panic! Okay, not really panic, but I started to pace the kitchen trying to find something to pull together-quick!

One thing we don't want to do when there is no dinner planned is????? Go out! Right, it's not nice to the wallet or waist! So....I looked out the window, looked at my fridge, looked out the window again and decided on...soup, comforting, steamy, rainy day bliss, soup.

Derek told me a few days ago we needed to add more beans into our meals, he's right. With meat on the back burner at our house we need the protein from nuts and beans, so I added beans to this delicious soup, you however can leave them out if you'd like...it's not a totally crucial ingredient.

All I did for this soup is raid my fridge and pull out any vegetable I wanted to throw into this! It blended together so nicely, it coupled some whole grain toast with ease and my kids turned into dippin' fools! Come on now, that's one of the best parts of soup is dipping the roll into right!

My daughter was adorable tonight, she dipped, then sipped...after about doing this three times she looked at me and said "Mom, I just love this so much!" Seriously guys, pure vegetable soup! What more could  I ask for! Shake this up to your heart's content....you really can't go wrong

Garden Vegetable Soup

2 C low-sodium vegetable broth

3 C water

2 C chopped carrots

2 C cubed potatoes

1 chopped broccoli crown

1/2 onion

1 C frozen corn

1 zucchini

2 cloves garlic

2 celery stalks, chopped

1 C white beans, rinsed and drained (optional) 

1 T Mrs. Dash Seasoning

1/2 T Italian seasoning

1/2 T paprika

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)

Combine water, broth, onion and garlic, heat over medium heat while you chop the remaining vegetables. Add vegetables, beans and seasonings to pot. Cover and heat over med-low until potatoes are very tender. Scoop half of soup and put it in the blender, blend until puree texture, return puree to the rest of the soup. Serve with warm rolls and salad! 

*this soup will freeze well, so if you have a lot of left overs or want to use it as a freezer meal go for it!