I bumped into a neighbor at the market recently. She had a number of cans of soup in her shopping basket and mentioned how much she likes a cup of hot soup now that winter is approaching.
When I ask her why she buys canned soup she said she’d never dream of making her own - it would be too complicated. It’s funny, I’ve heard other people say that too. But soup is one of the easiest dishes you can make, and when you make your own, you are in charge of the ingredients and it will be a soup that’s free of potentially harmful preservatives.
Here’s what happened: I’d planned to make my Tuscan bean soup that weekend, so I invited my neighbor over to watch the process. You can see from the photo it took a bit of chopping - celery, carrots, onion and garlic. The organic diced tomatoes and beans were canned, but everything else was fresh. All it took was a quick sauce of the chopped vegetables and garlic; adding some fresh basil and rosemary, and once softened. the remainder of the ingredients were added (4 cups chicken or vegetable broth, diced tomato and beans) to simmer for another 12 minutes. Once removed from heat, the spinach was aded and mixed into the soup. It’s that easy!
When my neighbor saw the big pot of soup, all ready to eat, she was very excited to taste it She was sold on it - ‘delicious,’ she said. I think I have a convert……