Low Calorie Vegetable Soup

Total Time: 1 hr Preparation Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 40 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 5
• 1 cup carrot, sliced
• 1 cup celery, sliced
• 1 cup zucchini, sliced
• 3 cups pumpkin, small diced
• 1/2 cup onion, chopped
• 1 -2 teaspoon garlic, crushed
• 1/2 cup dried soup mix (barley/split peas etc)
• 2 teaspoons vegetable stock powder (or to taste)
• 6 cups water
• salt and pepper

Recipe

• 1 soak the dried soup mix in water overnight, or several hours.
• 2 drain away the water and rinse.
• 3 this cuts down the cooking time and removes the'gasiness' from the dried mix!
• 4 chop up all the vegetables.
• 5 in a large non-stick pot cook the onions and garlic until softened.
• 6 add all of the vegetables and cook stirring for about 5 minutes.
• 7 add all of the water, soup mix and stock powder.
• 8 simmer for about 40 minutes.
• 9 time can be more or less depending on how small you diced your vegetables or how long you soaked your soup mix, or just how mushy you want the vegetables!
• 10 so check regulary until done to your liking.
• 11 season to taste.
• 12 if you like your soup a big thicker just mash some of the vegetables with a potato masher (i do it right in the pot) or put a stick blender in there for a few seconds.
• 13 this soup freezes very well and the recipe is easily doubled or tripled.
• 14 i make a batch of this on weekends and freeze in individual portions to eat for lunch during the week.
• 15 reheat from frozen for 5 minutes in the microwave, stirring once.