Updated: Jan 3, 2021
There are so many versions of this soup. The sky is the limit. You can use any variety of vegetables and any type of bean you want.
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Peel, wash and chop all your vegetables (see video above)
Place into a large soup pot (except garlic, peas and Escarole) and cover with olive oil and add salt. Heat on high, then lower to medium high. Stir often. Cover, but check and stir often. If it's getting a little dry, add about a cut of water. You may have to add water a few times until the vegetables soften.
When the vegetables are almost soft, add in your garlic and let it fry a little bit. Then add your vegetable broth, about a cup and a half of water and the escarole. To see how to wash and chop your escarole, click the green link (that's my my mom - the master, making the escarole - under the video is a link to blog post for full recipe). I chopped mine smaller for this recipe since it's going into soup. (see video)
When the Escarole cooks down a bit, add your beans. I did not drain the Habichuelas beans, I did drain and rinse the Kidney beans. Then I added some red sauce. The same sauce I used for my moussaka. Stir well, lower heat, cover and let simmer. (see video)
As the soup simmered, I boiled up some gluten free pasta separately to add to just my portion. I didn't want to put it directly into the soup.
We will eat the soup for dinner again tonight with my parents. Everyone has their own preferences. Mom likes small pastina in hers (not gluten free) Dad doesn't like any pasta in his. They may want some chicken in theirs which I can add for them from a Rotisserie chicken in mom's freezer (obviously defrosted).
After the soup, we will have the Moussaka and that's dinner. Easy, peasy.
The ham steak is for my husband. I just added a small amount of sugar free maple syrup. I also made him potatoes and onions in the air fryer which was wonderful for my Moussaka.
Drain your pasta and add it to your bowl of delicious soup. Yes, I made a bit too much. I could have saved some aside, but, I was tired and said, what the hell, and dumped it all in.
The soup stores well. In fact, it tastes better the next day. The ingredients "marry" as with many dishes and are even more delicious.
It was a perfect soup night. We had wicked storms here on Long Island, including a tornado watch? What? Yes, it was very real.
Funny Story: I have a gate across the kitchen. One of my dogs, Lucy, aka Houdini, actually knows how to hit the button at the bottom of the gate and let herself in. She taps it with her paw over and over until she hits it just right.
She doesn't want to miss a thing. So... my husband rigged it, making it more of a pain in the butt for us, but hopefully it will keep her out.
That's her above, refusing to look at me, her guilty face in full view. She would not acknowledge that she opened the gate and was sniffing around the kitchen looking for any stray crumbs and finding ways to get into trouble. She's always a problem, this one.
Why is she not allowed in the kitchen? Because she's Houdini and gets into cabinets and packages of food, or the covered garbage can or anything she can find. That long nose comes in handy!
She can SNIFF OUT anything! Grrrrrrr. She's the biggest, most annoying pain in the butt out of any dog I've ever had, but we adore her and love her just the way she is.
Ingredients:
Carrots
Celery
Red onion
Garlic cloves
White potatoes
Sweet potatoes
String beans
Broccoli
Peas
Escarole
Olive oil
Red sauce
Swanson Gluten Free Vegetable Broth
Water
Salt
Kidney Beans
Habichuelas beans
Tinkyada organic brown rice pasta (elbows)
