Nutrition with a Twist: Beans, Beans and More Beans...

Bean Soup, originally uploaded by Koay.

Have the basic rules for eating healthier got you stuck in a rut? Each week, The Health and Life Mixing Bowl will serve up some good stuff to expand your nutritional options and perhaps ignite a genuine interest in eating better. Read more about these posts here.

Bean soup is one of my favorite healthy comfort foods during the colder months.  I usually simmer a big pot of it on a lazy Saturday morning.  It's ready by dinnertime and it takes care of meals for the next couple of days.  Purcell Mountain Farms sells over one hundred different beans and lists all sorts of neat recipes on their website.  There are enough beans here to enjoy a new bean dish every week for the next two years! Here is one of their recipes for Spanish Tolosana Bean Soup:

1 cup Spanish Tolosana Beans
4 cups water
1 onion, coarsely chopped
1 potato, peeled and cubed
1 carrot, scraped and sliced
1 celery rib, sliced
1 cup sliced green cabbage
28 oz tin chopped tomatoes in juice
Salt and pepper to taste

Prepare Beans: Rinse and pick over beans. Pour boiling water
over beans to cover by 2 inches, cover and leave for 1 hour.
Drain, cover with water and cook over medium heat until tender. (Checking for doneness at 20 min.)

Prepare Vegetables: In another pan, cook the onion, potato,
carrot and celery in the 4 cups of water until tender. Drain,
reserving cooking water.

Prepare Soup: To beans add the undrained tomatoes and the
cabbage. Add cooked vegetables to bean mixture adding
reserved cooking water until desired thickness is reached.
Add salt and pepper to taste. Reheat and serve piping hot.

Enjoy!

Comments

[Cindy]

This looks delicious. I'll have to try it out soon.