Soupapoluza

I made soup the past two nights. I'm going out of town this weekend, so I'll miss the weekly grocery store run this weekend, so how do you keep your vegetables edible over a long weekend? Make soup of course! Plus my apartment has been making me cold.

Last night I made Carrot Cilantro Chili Soup. I didn't exactly measure the chili paste or the cilantro and it had a little too much chili paste and a little too little cilantro (either that or it was just too much chili and covered the taste of the cilantro, the soup was pretty hot, definitely spicier than my chili.

Tonight I made up an Italian vegetable soup. I made it with what I had lying around, so you could certainly make modifications (use frozen basil, for instance). It went something like this:
1 tsp canola oil
1/2 onion diced
2 stalks celery diced
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 can chicken broth (being a grad student means I don't have the space for a chicken to make my own chicken stock, but I will someday soon...)
1 6oz can tomato paste
2-3 c water
5 oz fresh spinach washed and chopped
1/4 c fresh basil
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp homemade Italian seasoning (dried basil, thyme, rosemary, and oregano in approximately equal parts, I'm not sure if this is what they sell in stores, but it's my 4 favorites)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
dash cracked pepper
1 c Trader Joe's Harvest Grains Blend

1. Cook onion and celery in canola oil in large pot. When starting to soften, add chicken broth, water, tomatoes, tomato paste, spinach, basil, garlic, sugar, Italian seasoning, pepper.
2. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer about a half an hour until the veggies are almost soft. This is when I added the garlic powder because I didn't think it had enough flavor. You might also add more salt (I used low sodium broth and no sodium added tomatoes and if I liked salt I might have wanted more) pepper, or Italian seasoning. Taste it and decide what you need.
3. Add Harvest Grains. Simmer on low for 10 minutes until they are cooked, then remove from heat and serve. I put a little shredded mozzerella cheese on top and it was fantastic!