Yellow Pantry Bean Soup

Aren’t the grocery bills going up? One great thing about cutting meat out of the menu, is that my bills at the checkout line have gone down, but still! Wow! One other way to save money is to eat the food that’s already in your cupboards, pantry and freezer.

This beautiful soup was made from stuff from my pantry and fridge. I served it with cheese quesadillas using beautiful sprouted grain tortillas from deep in the freezer. I forget they were even in there!  A simple and satisfying Sunday evening meal.

Here’s what I used:

½ bag of navy beans from the pantry

2 carrots from the bottom drawer of the fridge

1 onion from the pantry

Vegetable bouillon from the pantry

¼ jar of Trader Joe’s Bruschetta from the fridge

Some seasonings from the cupboard: salt, dried parsley, turmeric

AWESOME leftover juice from roasted red peppers

See those little bowls of juice? I drained that from the pan that I used to roast some red peppers.  It was too good to throw away, so I found a use for it! 

Here’s what I did:

Quick soak the beans by boiling them for 2 minutes and allowing them to sit around in that same water for 1-4 hours. Then drain. Then simmer until tender with vegetable bouillon. Add chopped carrots, onions and tomatoes. At the end of the cooking time add the secret ingredient: oily red pepper juice (leftover from when I roasted a dozen red peppers earlier this week. …. I never throw any food away. )

Cost: minimal

Taste: great