Steve’s 20-25min Easy Vegetable Soup

I would like to present the first oneClimbs recipe! I’m not a professional cook, but I love to cook and love to eat. I try to cook meals that reflect the principles found in the Word of Wisdom, so everything I cook attempts to be a whole food plant-based (vegetables, fruits and grains) meal.

This past Tuesday I needed to make some dinner for myself and the kids and they all started screaming for vegetable soup.

As much as I love to cook, I’ve never actually made a soup before, but since I’m kind of an idiot savant at knowing what things to throw together to make something delicious, I raised my fist and proclaimed “We shall feast on soup tonight!” I pulled a bunch of vegetables out of the fridge and gathered some spices and began to divide everything out into the portions I thought would be necessary. Then I had to experiment with the spices, adding a little here and a little there until I was pretty amazed at how good it tasted.

The kids actually loved it, so much so that I got high fives and they said, “This is the best thing I have ever tasted.” (They say that about so many things)

Well, last night I decided to give it another go, it was so good I wanted to make sure I could replicate it. The first time, I didn’t make enough for left overs so I made a whole pot this time. I took out all the ingredients and measured them perfectly and took notes. I further honed the recipe, added carrots and the final result was better than the previous batch.

So here’s the recipe, I’ve made it open source so anyone can tweak it and make it better. If you know of a way to improve it, leave me a message in the notes and I’ll try your suggestions! Here’s the recipe, my style, of course.

Stuff for the pot

• 5 cups water
• 2.5 cups cooked white rice (just pick up a pint from Chinese take out if you don’t know how to make it yourself)
• 1 cup diced tomatoes
• 3/4 cup garbanzo beans (or chickpeas)
• 1/4 cup celery
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1 tsp dried basil leaves
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp pepper

Stuff for the pan

• 3/4 cup carrots (6 baby carrots)
• 1 med zucchini
• 14 Green beans cut into 1 in segments
• 1 cup of spinach
• 3/4 cup cauliflower chopped

Step 1:

Chop up everything and put whatever tickles your fancy into awesome little bowls if you have them; that’s pro-style.

Step 2:

Everything on the “Stuff for the pot” list goes in the pot…like-a-so.

Step 2.5:

Stir it around so it looks like this:

Step 3:

Put a pan on the stove and drizzle a little oil in there if you must. Note the time or start a stopwatch on your phone, then, ladies and gentlemen, start your burners! Set ’em both to about mediumish. Now put all the pan stuff in the pan BUT NOT THE SPINACH YET, keep that on the bench for now!

Sauté  those veggies around like a champ and realize that it’s ok if they look a little roasted, you haven’t failed – yet.

Step 4:

About 10 minutes have passed, you are doing so well. The veggies are looking done and the broth is going a little crazy so turn it down the heat a little.

Step 5:

Time to make Popeye proud, dump that spinach in and mix it around for 2 minutes or so until it turns dark green.

Yeah, very nice.

Step 6:

Alright, the moment you’ve been waiting for has arrived. Take all the vegetables and, just dump ’em into the pot.

Just mix it all in and make a little vegetable whirlpool. Everything should have been cooking for around 15 minutes or so by this point.

Let it simmer there for a bit and do its thing; just seems like the right thing to do.

Step 7:

After looking at it and sneaking tastes, you realize it’s probably edible at this point. I think it’s ready to eat by about 20 – 25 minutes in. I haven’t left it there for longer, so nobody really knows what happens. But if you want to be a hero and push the limits, go for it, Marco Polo.

Enjoy the soup, I think it’s pretty good.