emily eats and drinks

Like most Catholics, I tend to experience a fair amount of guilt, often times over things that I have little to no control over. One of the things that I’ve always felt guilty about is my inability to enjoy a bowl of soup. Cream of Anything makes me want to vomit, and I’ve always had a bit of a problem eating any meat chunks out of a can. And even though I don’t like soup, I feel bad about it. I should like soup, right? Sure, I like vegetables, I like noodles, I even like chunks of meat. I often find myself standing in canned food aisle at Meijer looking for some kind of soup that I could enjoy. Erica has pretty accurately named my soup dilemma “Soup Guilt.” And I have it bad. I mean, look at this:

That looks delicious! But, it would be something I would have a hard time eating.

Anyway, my soup guilt has started to subside. Not because I am better able to deal with my guilt issues, but because I have been forcing myself into liking it lately. At Trader Joe’s the other night I bought Sweet Potato Bisque (reviewed here by Heat Eat Review) which I will probably have to trick myself into eating.

Sunday my extended family got together to celebrate an award my grandfather won. My Aunt Becky is a wonderful cook, who I have learned a lot from, made a Southwestern vegetable soup that I forced myself to eat. And I liked it. I liked it a lot. It was wonderful. She sent me the recipe, and it’s pretty easy. Here it is:

Southwestern Vegetable Soup
6 cups water
1 large onion, diced*
1 large green pepper, diced*
1 can (~15 oz.) tomato sauce
2 cans (~15 oz.) petite diced tomatoes
2 cans (4 oz) chopped green chiles (drain and rinse lightly)
2 cans (~15 oz.) black beans (rinse and drain)
1 can (~15 oz.) pinto beans (rinse and drain)
1 can (~15 oz.) dark red kidney beans (rinse and drain)
2 envelopes chili seasoning mix (each should read for 1 lb. ground beef, if it says for 2 lbs, just add 1 packet.)
1 can (~15 oz.) corn (drained) OR 2 cups frozen corn+
1 can (~15 oz.) green beans (drained) OR 2 cups frozen green beans+ salt to taste (depending on whether or not you choose salt-free tomatoes and sauce)

Directions:
Chop onion and pepper. Place a large stockpot on burner, set temp to medium. Combine all ingredients in pot being sure to rinse and drain beans and drain chilies before adding. Add the frozen vegies last as the ingredients start to warm. Bring to a boil stirring regularly, then reduce to simmer. Continue simmering, stirring every now and then to avoid sticking, for 2 hours.

Serve with shredded cheese, sour cream, tortillas.

* If you don’t like to cut onions and pepper, you can usually purchase them pre-cut fresh or frozen.

+ The original recipe called for canned vegies, but I personally prefer frozen vegies and I’m really picky about green beans (there are only a few kinds that  like and I don’t care for canned green beans at all). When I make the soup I usually use Bondouelle brand green beans from DLM which are very thin, young, frozen green beans. I break them in 1/2 or 1/3’s as I’m adding them to the soup. I have also used a bag of mixed frozen vegies in place of the corn and green beans when that was all I had.