It was 65 degrees here in Colorado last Friday, so naturally it makes sense that it would snow eight inches on Sunday night. School closures all over northeast Colorado! Almost makes me wish I was still in school…..almost. We have had about a week of extremely cold weather and then it was just beautiful for a few weeks. When I was going through the weekend weather forecast on Friday (which I do several times during my show), it said that it would be windy, cloudy, and chance of snow but less than an inch was possible. Well let’s just say they were about 6-7 inches off from that forecast. It was windy though! Snow drifts were all over the place.
Along with about 98% of the world population, I love hot soup on cold days. For those of you who fall in the 2% I hope I don’t offend you… you are crazy! There is nothing better than getting home from work when it is snowy and cold outside and having soup to warm you from the inside out. Well, when the first cold spurt came through I decide to take my slow cooker out of hibernation and fire it up. I know you can use it anytime of year, not just in the winter, but I am horrible at remembering to use it during the summer.
One reason the slow cooker is so great is that you leave it on while you go to work and it does all the work for you! They also came out with slow cooker liners that make clean-up a breeze…yes I used one!
It is sometimes hard to make recipes for one or two people because there can be so many leftovers afterward. I hate wasting food so if I have a lot extra I will eat it for days and days…which gets incredibly boring. With soup however, you can freeze it! I made a big batch of the minestrone then put it in Ziploc freezer bags to put in the freezer. I put two cups of soup in each quart-size Ziploc. Then I laid the bags flat on a cookie sheet so they would freeze that way and are super easy to store! You can stack them up and it saves room in your freezer.
When I got home today I didn’t want to make a batch of soup so I took a bag out of the freezer and defrosted it in the microwave. When Donny & I were ready to eat we heated it up and voila, homemade soup in minutes! I occasionally buy canned soups but they tend to be very high in sodium and surprisingly have a lot of sugar in them. If you make the soup yourself you can control both of these things and of course, it is cheaper.
I made minestrone soup because I had actually never made it before. There are so many vegetables in it! It has zucchini, carrots, celery, red onion, diced tomatoes, green beans, and kale…woah, I know! I also put red kidney beans and chickpeas for protein and some whole grain pasta. I mean look at all those beautiful colored veggies!
You can always make this same soup over the stove if you forget, or don’t want to use your slow cooker. It will be delicious either way! Donny put some Parmesan cheese on his and he really liked it. We also put, surprise surprise, Chalula on it for a little kick.
- 4 cups vegetable stock
- 2 Tbsp tomato paste
- 2 - 14.5 oz cans of diced tomatoes
- 1 - 14.5 oz can kidney beans
- 1 - 14.5 oz can garbanzo beans (chickpeas)
- 2/3 cup red onion, chopped
- 1 cup carrots, diced
- 1 cup celery, chopped
- 2 cups zucchini, chopped
- 1 cup fresh green beans
- 3 cups kale, chopped
- 4 oz whole grain elbow macaroni
- Place the vegetable stock, tomato paste, carrots, celery, red onion, beans, and diced tomatoes in a slow cooker. Turn slow cooker on the Low setting and let cook for 7-8 hours. 30 minutes before serving add the zucchini, green beans, kale, and macaroni. Cook on Low until the pasta is al dente.
