Recipe: Veggie Bean Soup

There's nothing like a hot bowl of soup to warm you up in the winter. I generally eat salads for lunch but like to eat soup for lunch more during the winter. Adding a little spice like cayenne pepper gets your blood flowing and warms you up. Soup can sometimes have a bad reputation because of its high sodium content, but you can avoid this simply by making your own. I encourage you to experiment with making veggie soups, all you need is boiling water and a bunch of chopped vegetables. Carrot and celery add good flavor and beans add protein. This recipe includes broccoli, which aids in keeping a healthy weight, and tomato, which has a lot of antioxidants.

Ingredients:
6 cups water
1 can crushed tomatos
3-4 medium carrots
1 red pepper
1 red onion
4-5 cloves of garlic
2-3 bay leaves
1 bunch broccoli
2 medium zucchini squash
1 can red kidney beans
1 can white kidney beans
3 bay leaves
1tsp. dried oregano
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. salt
pepper to taste

Add water to a large pot and bring to boil. Meanwhile, chop up all of your vegetables to bite-size pieces. Add the tomatoes, carrots, pepper, onion, garlic, and bay leaves to the water. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Then, add the rest of the ingredients to the pot, and bring the water back to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 5-10 more minutes, or until the vegetables are soft. You can serve immediately or save some for later. This recipe makes about 5 servings. I like to freeze individual servings and then just heat them up in the microwave for a quick meal.

This meal is super cheap since all you have to buy are vegetables and cans of beans. Since vegetable prices vary, I won't list all of the prices of the ingredients individually, but I spent a total of $10.13 on these ingredients at the grocery store, excluding the spices. That's about $2 per serving! Only some of my ingredients were organic, but this meal would still be cheap if you used all organic ingredients.