Home-made tomato based veggie soup (extremely low sodium)

muth3rluvx2

8-12 fresh whole tomatoes
4-5 whole carrots - skin on
3-4 red potatoes - skin on
3-4 celery stalks
bag of dried bean soup or variety of dry beans (lima, split pea - yellow and green, and whatever else you like)
frozen peas & corn (can't find them raw and kerneled and wayyyy too much work for me! so I use frozen on both these)
whole fresh green beans
black pepper
worcestshire
sea salt (better than table - don't worry, you won't be using much at all!)
whole wheat rotini pasta

Blender or juicer (I used a juicer, but not everyone has one so a blender will do also)
knife for veggies
cutting board
3 pots
1 med/large bowl

In one pot, follow the directions on the dry beans for a good rinse, set aside.

In your soup pot (something that will fit I guess about 12 or so cups of water?), fill it up with water, add the whole tomatoes and boil until the skin peels off. While this is going, finely chop the other veggies, put them in a bowl and set aside. In your 3rd pot, pre-cook your potatoes after they are cubed - but not all the way through. Rinse thoroughly (I didn't do this and mine came out just a bit more potatoey than tomatoey). Set aside.

Right about now, the skins on the tomatoes should be peeling off. Spoon them out into a bowl - leave the water - this is the start of your soup stock. Peel the tomatoes and cut into small chunks (whatever your juicer will allow or will sufficiently puree in your blender) - juice/puree, add to water and start boiling. You will boil this down by about a quarter to half inch (loss), add pepper, a few DROPS of worcesteshire (just enough to make the liquid a little darker) and add a pinch or two of sea salt. NO MORE! The only goal is to bring out the flavor of the tomatoe. Allow to boil down a bit more.

Add dry beans first, cook for 20 minutes. Somewhere in here you may find that you need a little more water just because the pasta and/or veggies made the soup too thick.. this is okay, just expect your base not to be quite as tomatoey as it would have been - which some people might prefer. Then add I guess maybe a cup to a cup and a half? of Rotini (I don't measure anything) and raw veggies. Low boil until everything is tender and your soup is done!

All told, adding the green beans, peas and corn at the very end, I think it took an hour - and that's with an awful lot of wait time in there. I wish I could post a picture. :-( I hope someone tries this and offers some feedback! Suggestions for improvement welcome! I have NO CLUE about cals, btw... a bowl can't possibly be much. I'd guess at maybe 60? No clue about the rest and I'm sure I could go through and anally figure it all out - and please forgive me for not. :-p I can't tell you how many cals the 3 green beans that were in my bowl were and I'm not going to take the time to find out. Now, if someone else wants to - please feel free! :-) btw - there should be PLENTY to freeze for several meals. I'd propose that there'd be at least 10 servings.

OneMission

Sounds yummy!
Thanks for sharing!!!

dvincent

I definitely plan on trying this one, thank you for all your effort getting this posted.

muth3rluvx2

Oh - I forgot to mention, after the soup stock has been cooking for a bit but before you put in the dry beans, skim it with a slotted spoon to get the remaining pulp out. I put my pulp back in to cook out the rest of the goodies and keep it in teh soup, but I didn't want the texture and the stuff would have been flavorless at that point anyway - just a mushy clump of slime. EW! Some people may like this - I personally do not. ;-)

(even my soon to be 7 yr old liked this recipe!!)

Let me know what you ladies think and if you have any suggestions for improvement! The 7 grain pepperidge farms flat bread (1/2 loaf = 50 cals) was a nice compliment. :-)