Tomato Soup with Black Beans and Rice

Today's soup was a variation on tomato soup with rice. It tasted great, and is loaded with nutritious ingredients, so I figured I'd share! You can vary this soup yourself, it is so forgiving.

1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 fennel bulb, chopped
3-5 large leaves of cabbage, chopped
Heat 1 T. olive oil in a large soup pot, add the above ingredients, and cook, stirring, till limp and fragrant, but not carmelized.

Add
1 c. brown rice
Stir well

Add:
2 chopped tomatoes
Stir well

Add
water or soup stock (about 8-10 cups)
250 g. (approx) tomato paste
1 c. black beans, cooked and drained
salt, pepper, basil, other herbs to taste

Bring soup to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer till the rice is fully cooked (at least 40 min for brown rice)
Serve hot.

Yum! Yes really there are black beans in there, they are just settling to the bottom of the bowl, so hard to see

Enjoy!

















This post was shared with My Legume Love Affair #43 in January 2012. (Find out more about this here)

Vegetable Soup Stock

For years now I have been making my own vegetable soup stock. It's so easy. The best part is, I make it out of scraps that other people just toss. The only cost involved is the gas for cooking and the water for cooking it. FAR cheaper than buying a mix, or prepared soup stock. Far healthier, too!

Here's what I do: I save all the scraps from my vegetables (don't save beet scraps, cabbage scraps, or potato scraps for this though) - like onion, garlic, carrot peels, celery bits, even fennel... I fill up a gallon size container in my freezer. When it's full, I fill my stock pot and simmer away. Then the trick is storing it. I know some people can it (canning is way beyond my home ec. skills), others freeze. I'm a freezer fan. Sometimes I freeze it in small (pint) containers, and sometimes I freeze it in ice cube trays and then pop those out and store in a large container... That way is great for adding a little stock to sauces, the pint containers are perfect for enriching soup...