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Zesty Vegetable-Vegetable Soup

This truly is the BEST vegetable soup that I have ever made! 

        It all began with me being cooped up at home with workman who have been putting in new attic stairs.  I’m here to tell you that this has not been a quick job.  We are into day two and, probably the 8th hour of this project, and the end still does not look it’s coming very soon. Such is life. The men have been very pleasant, so it’s been okay being “stranded”.  I actually enjoy days where I am “forced” to stay home.   I LOVE my home and I LOVE being here, but being a part-time employee, wife and domestic engineer, requires frequent errand running and such, so I have to be away from my sweet abode more than I’d like.

Anyway...

Today has been an overcast, cold and gloomy Friday winter's day.  All the more reason to stay put.
The conditions were just PERFECT for soup making!  So, armed with a head of cabbage and a large variety of vegetables, I sat down and consulted Pinterest.  The soup recipe that sounded the best and came closest to matching the ingredient supply that I had on hand, was a vegetable cabbage soup.  

~BUT~

I have this bad habit of jumping into making a recipe before checking to make sure that I have everything that is needed.  This usually requires a bit of “tweaking”.  Sometimes I have had to "pull a rabbit out of a hat” and use my most creative culinary skills.  A few of these, which my husband calls “experiments”, have turned out to be delicious!

This recipe was one of those times, but I will spare you the details of where my “shortages” were and just give you my newest and most favorite vegetable soup recipe, which I call...

Zesty Vegetable-Vegetable Soup

3 onions, chopped

5 or 6 cloves of garlic, chopped 

1 28 oz. can diced tomatoes,with juice

1 cup green beans 
4 cups chicken broth
1 medium  head cabbage, chopped
1 can tomato paste
7 cups water
1/2 red, yellow and orange bell pepper,chopped  
2 tablespoons dried basil
1 stalk of kale, chopped
1 teaspoon red chili pepper flakes
6 1/2 tablespoons Streit’s soup base
(onion flavored)        
2 tablespoons Italian seasoning


Put all the ingredients in a very large pot. Heat to boil, then reduce to medium heat and cook until vegetables are tender. Simmer for 45 minutes and keep on low for another 30 minutes or so.


I can’t stop eating this stuff!  It is very low in calories and pretty healthy too.  Yum.

~It’s a keeper~