This week I decided to try something different by letting my husband pick my theme and recipes. I wanted a different perspective so I don’t keep making the same thing over and over, and I sure got it. This week will be chock full vegetables with a side of fruit without any meat or seafood in sight. But don’t despair–he chose recipes that sound like they will be filling and full of deliciousness! First up is a hearty Tuscan bean soup that is ready in about 30 minutes. Mmmmm!
This easy Tuscan bean soup is the perfect meal for stormy weather and busy weeknights!
The Ingredients
The list of ingredients for Tuscan bean soup was long, but don’t let that intimidate you. I had a few things like the spices, sugar, and vinegar in my pantry, and that shortened my grocery list a bit. I mainly had to shop for the vegetables with a few items from the canned foods aisle.
A nice surprise was how inexpensive all the fresh food was. Most items were around a dollar. In fact, the Parmesan cheese was the most expensive item at $3.50, and it was just a garnish. It’s not even on the list of ingredients, and I only knew to add it after reading the author’s blog post.
The Process
My Tuscan bean soup was pretty easy to make, but it did take slightly longer than the 30 minutes listed on the recipe. Mine took 37 minutes, and the extra time went into the prep work, but I expected that. The author explains in her blog post that she used an attachment for her stand mixer to quickly chop the vegetables. I don’t have a stand mixer, so I used my trusty vegetable chopper instead.
The cooking part went very smoothly, and I was pretty effortless up to the part where I had to blend the soup. It wasn’t difficult, but I had to be very careful while ladling the hot soup into my blender. There were spills, but it wasn’t too messy. An immersion blender would have made things quicker and easier for sure.
