Chunky Vegetable Soup

If I have not mentioned it before, I really love soup, even pea soup, and I'm not a big fan of cooked peas!

On Sunday I made a really nice soup without the use of any packaged vegetable broth, just with the broth generated naturally by the soup's ingredients.

Here is the recipe:

Lisa's Chunky Vegetable Soup

Ingredients
1 tbs canola oil
3 large cloves of garlic finely chopped
1 large onion, coarsely chopped- my favourites are Spanish onions, sweet onions and Vidalia onions
4 large carrots, peeled and coursely chopped in the food processor
3 celery stalks, chopped into 1/4 inch slices
1 zucchini, cut lengthwise in quarters, and chopped into 1/4 inch slices
1/2 head of cabbage, shredded or 1 bag of plain coleslaw
Black pepper to taste
Trader Joe's Everyday Spice Blend to taste

Instructions

1. Add the oil to a heavy soup pot, heat, and toss the onions and chopped garlic in to cook.  Stir frequently until the onion is mostly translucent.
2. Add the other veggies and add water to cover.
3. Add pepper and Trader Joe's Everyday Spice Blend to taste.
4. Bring to a boil, and let the soup boil hard for about three to five minutes.
5. Add more water to top up the pot and return to a boil.
6. Turn the heat down and let the soup simmer for about twenty minutes.

What about Protein?

Once the soup is made you can add rinsed and drained beans.  My go-to beans are black beans but white beans would also go nicely in this soup.

I also put slices of pressed plain tofu in the soup.  The tofu absorbs the flavours and becomes quite tasty.

You can serve this soup with crackers or a nice sourdough bread.  

I discovered quite by accident that this soup is also great when cold.