Vegetable Soup...

Ok, so there are probably about as many different versions of vegetable soup as there are people who have inhabited the earth since creation. In fact, I have at least three different versions of "vegetable soup" that I make during fasting times. This is a new version (as in, I have never made it until tonight). And, of course, I changed little things here and there depending on what I have on hand(I do not happen to have Old Bay Seasoning so I looked it up online and sort of made up my own version of it).

Here it is... another vegetable soup recipe:)
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 carrots peeled and thinly sliced
2 ribs celery chopped
3 medium red skinned potatoes, diced
1 bay leaf
1 1/2 tsp. Old Bay Seasoning (see above)
1 can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 can diced tomatoes in juice
3 cans broth
salt and pepper to taste
5-6 oz. spinach or baby spinach

Heat a deep pot over medium heat. add oil, onion, carrots, celery, potatoes, bay leaf, and Old Bay Seasoning. Cover pot to cook veggies about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. add beans, tomatoes, broth and season with salt and pepper. Simmer for about 30 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in spinach. Serve when spinach wilts.

Ok. I did not have spinach so we did this without the spinach. But we would like to try it with the spinach. I used 2 cups veggie broth and added about 1 cup water so I used less broth/water than the recipe called for which I think is fine. We like a thick soup anyway. I did not use canned beans. Back when I made the Vegetarian Chili, I had soaked a combination of black beans, pinto beans, and kidney beans. I did not use all the beans for the chili so I put them in the freezer. I pulled the bag o' beans out of the freezer and used that (it was probably 3 cups of cooked beans). We liked this soup. It is very good; very hearty with all these veggies. You could probably add all sorts of other veggies (grean beans, peas, etc). This is a keeper recipe and it is actually better than my stand by vegetable soup recipe. Yay!

In other news... a friend of mine from church mentioned when I started this recipe blog that it reminded her of the movis Julie and Julia. At that point my only knowledge of that movie was that it was about a woman who sets out to make everything in Julia Child's cookbook. I didn't realize she blogged about her experience. Another friend mentioned that the movie was playing at the $3 theater last night so we went to watch it. It is very cute. I very much enjoyed it. I don't know that I would have the discipline to do something like this for an entire year and my reason for doing this is different than Julie's reasons... I am doing this to add to my recipe collection of good Lenten meals instead of eating lentil soup every night (even though we ate that last night:) Depending on how I am doing by thte time Nativity rolls around, I "might" continue to post new recipes for regular meals because we all do get stuck in that cooking rut. I would love to venture out and make new dishes for my family. AND we also have diet restrictions and I am always on the lookout for new ways to turn gluten filled foods into gluten free foods.

I do promise, though, that I will never post things about my relationship with my husband. You won't know when we have an argument; I just can't do that to him.

Anyway, enough ramling from me. Tomorrow we are having FISH for dinner!!! WooHoo! You know you are Orthodox when you get excited about fish:)