Vegetable Soup for People Who Don’t Like Vegetables

Winter seems to have come with a vengeance to Edmonton and it’s not even December 21st yet! One of the best ways to warm up on a cold winter day is to enjoy a nice bowl of warm soup. One of the best soups is my mom’s homemade vegetable soup. I asked her to write-up the recipe so that I could share this delicious soup.

Vegetable Soup for People Who Don’t Like Vegetables

This vegetable soup is roughly based on a Weight Watchers recipe from long ago.

You can use whatever vegetables you have on hand, and although my soup varies from time to time, this is my usual recipe. You can also change it by adding some dill or thyme or another herb or a tabasco sauce for heat.

INGREDIENTS
– 1 tsp of olive or canola oil or a squirt of Pam
– 1 small onion or half of a large onion
– 1 8 or 9 inch zucchini
– 1 clove of garlic
– 4 carrots peeled
– 1 heaping tablespoonful of tomato paste
– 1 heaping tablespoonful of chicken ” Better Than Bouillon” with 6 cups of water or 6 cups of chicken broth

Ingredients

METHOD:
1. Roughly chop the carrots, onion and garlic and zucchini.

2. Add the oil or Pam to good-sized sauce pan. Toss the chopped onion in the pan and sweat it (cooking till beads of moisture form but not browning it). You can add a sprinkle of salt but wait till the end to do your final seasoning check. The chicken broth contains sodium too, and it’s easier to add more than deal with a too salty soup.

2. Add the garlic, crushed. Give it a stir, then add the other vegetables, and stir again.

3. Add the chicken stock or water and chicken concentrate, then tomato paste.

Simmering the Vegetables

4. Bring to a boil and simmer on low for about 20 minutes or till the carrot chunks are very tender.

5. It would be ideal to add a handful of dried lentils (to increase the nutrition) to the mix with the other vegetables before simmering, but it wasn’t a hit with Robyn.

6. Some non veggie fans also prefer not to see the individual vegetable chunks, so I blend the soup till it is smooth. I use an immersion blender. If you use a regular blender let the soup cool a bit and don’t fill the blender jar too full. Taste the soup and adjust the seasoning. I like a good grind of pepper and a bit more salt.

Blending the Soup

Very low or no fat, low sodium, lots of vegetables, no sugar, lots of fibre and you have a healthy, delicious soup for a winter’s day!