The Wind, the Cold, and the Vegetable Soup. . . .

During my weekends, I'm pretty much guaranteed to do a few things:  Hip Hop Classes at Pure Athletex, Sunday breakfast club at Denny's, laundry, and make something that will suffice as dinner for a few days in the week.  If it is something my son likes, then it may not last long--last week's penne and meat sauce was gone by Wednesday.  

After Hip Hop this morning, I decided to stop at Target and Giant Eagle to pick up some things for soup.  I picked up lots of things--moisturizer, cat food,  soup on sale (in particular microwaveable tomato), and a bag of cole slaw mix from the produce aisle.

Cole slaw mix is a joy of convenient cooking for the vegetable lover.  A pound bag seems like a lot, but trying to grate a head of cabbage without skinning the knuckles makes that $2 I spent feel like a million bucks.  I can easily use this bag three different ways--cole slaw (and if I flavor it with taco seasoning, a great topping for fish tacos), layered with cooked onions, rice and ground beef along with tomato soup and tomato sauce and baked in a slow oven--stuffed cabbage in a hurry, and vegetable soup.

I used to make a big deal out of vegetable soup.  A piece of tough beef, a soup bone, diced carrots and onions, potatoes, frozen limas and corn and green beans, beef soup base, canned tomatoes, barley and lastly shredded cabbage.  This soup was an all day affair.  Good tasting, but so long to cook.

Now, I take advantage of the convenient foods in the markets and I have a small pot of soup on the stove in minutes.  Let it simmer until the vegetables are tender, Add some sort of starch--pastina, barley, rice, a drained can of kidney or cannellini beans--and a third of a bag of cole slaw mix along with a tablespoon of table sugar, and you are done once the starch cooks and the cabbage is softened and no longer crunchy.  Reheats like a dream.  I put it away in the refrigerator and serve myself a bowl reheated in the microwave along with some good Italian bread (Mancini's or Cellone's) with butter.  Dinner is served.  This soup has no meat in it--saves time.  Want meat?  Make a sandwich.

Easy Vegetable Soup

1 32 oz box of vegetable stock (or 1 quart of water with Knorr's vegetable bouillon cubes added)

2 cups of water

1 16 oz bag of frozen soup vegetable mix 

1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes

Black pepper as you like

1 bay leaf

Stir this together in a large saucepan, soup pot or crock pot if you'd like.  Bring to a boil, and the simmer for about an hour.  

1/4 to 1/3 cup of barley or acini di pepe or orzo

1 T sugar

1/3 bag of cole slaw mix

Stir these into the soup and turn the heat up to boil, then down to simmer.  Add water if the soup is too thick or if the liquid has boiled down too far.  I like my soup to be thick so I am cautious when adding water.  The raw pasta and barley will soak some broth up as it cooks, and the cole slaw will not add additional liquid, but too much water will affect the taste.  I salt at the table as there is a considerable amount of salt in the broth and the canned tomatoes.

Can't get any easier than this.  No chopping, peeling or shredding.  Just pour, stir and simmer.  So very tasty, too.