Recipe: Autumn Vegetable Soup

When the temperature drops, the first food I crave is soup. Warm, hearty and packed with vegetables (+ lots of vitamins and minerals), I'm ready to conquer the world and fight off every kind of autumn cold bug there is. Plus, it's damn delicious.

After returning from New York City Sunday evening (more on that later!), I was feeling under the weather. I was losing my voice and had (still have) a slight allergic reaction on my body from who knows what. I needed some soup, and I needed some, stat.

The problem was that I hadn't gone grocery shopping in a week. I typically need to head to the market once a week to get enough fresh fruit and vegetables to make dinner every weeknight, and have enough left over for lunch each day. But my tired booty was not heading to the grocery store. 

Behold - autumn vegetable soup. With a few base ingredients, I'm convinced you can make soup from nearly any vegetable combination you have on hand. For me, that included an onion, kale, sweet potatoes and a handful of canned veggies. But like I said, I'm convinced you can whip up something delicious with just about anything in your produce drawer. Just look for a recipe online that contains some of the same ingredients and lightly follow along (this recipe was inspired by Mind Body Green).

The best part? Not only did it taste really yummy, it yielded enough for me to have lunches for work all week! That's a huge score in my book.

|| Photo is property of Twentyapolis. Must give credit. ||

Ingredients

Olive oil: 2 tablespoons

Onion: 1 cup chopped

Garlic: 2 teaspoons choped

Salt: 2 teaspoons

Pepper: 1-2 tablespoons to taste

Italian seasonings: 3 tablespoons to taste (I used oregano, sun dried tomato and a general Italian blend)

Carrots: 1-2 cups chopped

Sweet potatoes: 2 cups chopped

Tomatoes: 2 cans diced (you can always supplement chopped fresh tomatoes as well)

White beans: 2 cans

Vegetable stock: 4 cups (you can always supplement water if needed and add more spices)

Kale: 3-4 cups chopped

Lemon: 1/2 squeezed

Directions

1. Heat olive oil in a large soup pot. Add onion and sauté until translucent. Add garlic, salt, pepper and italian seasonings.

2. Add chopped carrots and sweet potatoes. Cook for 4-5 minutes.

3. Add tomatoes, white beans and vegetable stock. Bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer.

4. Add kale and lemon juice. Simmer until the potatoes and carrots are tender and kale is wilted.

5. Add more seasonings to taste.

6. Enjoy!