Salad Days

Spring is toying with us – one day it’s warm enough to eat your salad on the front porch, the next day the cold temperatures have us shivering under the covers trying to remember where we put our down jacket.

If the day dawns like the latter, it might make sense to pair your daily salad with a bowl of steaming soup. My friend Josie and I made a ridiculously easy tomato-bean soup for lunch today. (Ask her, it took 10 minutes from start to finish including heating it up.) The brilliance of the recipe, besides being so fast to make, is the number of possible variations.

Ridiculously Easy Tomato Soup
Adapted from Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourmet by Nava Atlas

1 15-ounce can white beans (drained and rinsed)
1 28-ounce can stewed tomatoes
2 green onions
1 tablespoon salt-free herb seasoning mix
Freshly ground pepper, to taste

Place all of the ingredients in a blender and puree until smooth. Put it in a pot with any extra ingredients you might fancy (see below for ideas) and heat until bubbly. Enjoy!

Here are the 11 varieties of tomato soup we came up with:

Tomato white bean soup
Add several tablespoons fresh dill, parsley or cilantro to the soup base when you blend it. Add another can of white beans (drained and rinsed) when you heat it up.

Mexican black bean soup
Add 1 tsp of cumin, 1 tsp of oregano and a handful of fresh cilantro to the soup base when you blend it (or more to taste). Add a can of black beans (drained and rinsed) and ½ a cup of corn when you heat it up.

Mexican hominy & pork soup
Same as above, but instead of beans and corn, add a small can of hominy (drained and rinsed) and some cooked shredded pork.

Gazpacho
Don’t heat the soup this time, but add some chopped onion, cucumber, bell pepper, celery and chives. A few drops of Tabasco sauce and a ¼ tsp of Worcestershire sauce would finish it off.

Italian Fish Stew
Add some chunks of white fish, a few saffron fronds, and some chopped fresh fennel bulb to the base when you heat it up. Simmer until the fish is cooked and the fennel is soft. Garnish with some chopped fennel fronds.

Summer vegetable soup
Throw in whatever veggies you have growing in your garden or find at the farmers’ market. Depending on the season you might find green beans, summer squash, carrots, asparagus, or hearty greens.

Cabbage patch soup
Sautee some hamburger and cabbage and add it to the soup base as it heats.

Portuguese sausage & kale soup
Add a can of white beans (drained and rinsed), some chopped spicy sausage and chopped kale to the soup base as it heats. Simmer until the kale is tender.

Winter root veggie soup
Add some thyme and sage to the soup base when you blend it. Experiment by cooking with a combination of carrots, turnips, parsnips, rutabagas, mushrooms, and potatoes in the soup base. You could also make this a hunters’ stew if you happened to have some venison or elk.

Cassoulet
This isn’t quite cassoulet, but it’s close. Add some herbs de Provence to soup base when you blend it. Add a can of beans (drained and rinsed) and some chopped sausage/chicken as it heats.

Thai curry soup
Ad some red curry paste (maybe ¼ tsp) and a small can of coconut milk to the soup base when you blend it. Some tofu, shrimp and baby corn would be nice additions as the soup heats.

Nutritional wisdom

Tomatoes are another super food we should be sure to eat plenty of. They contain lycopene, a pigment and phytochemical that can help ward off common cancers, including prostate cancer, breast cancer, endometrial cancer, lung cancer, and colorectal cancer.

And don’t forget, beans are serious health food too! A large recent study examined the eating habits of 32,000 adults for six years and then watched the incidence of cancer for these subjects over the next six years. Those who avoided red meat but ate white meat regularly had a more than 300 percent increase in colon cancer incidence. (1) The same study showed that eating beans, peas, or lentils, at least twice a week was associated with a 50 percent lower risk than never eating these foods. Beans, in general, not just soy, have additional anti-cancer benefits against reproductive cancers, such as breast and prostate cancer. (2)

1. Singh, P.N., and G.E. Fraser. 1998. Dietary risk factors for colon cancer in a low-risk population. Am. J. Epidem. 148: 761-74.

2. Nelson, N. J. 1996. Is chemoprevention research overrated or under-funded? Primary Care & Cancer 16 (8): 29-30.