Cabbage, White Bean, and Potato Soup

Cabbage, White Bean, and Potato Soup

Somehow my two kids just ate six bananas. I don't even understand how it's possible for two boys to eat six bananas in ten minutes. When I went to the grocery store today I bought myself a bunch of fruit for smoothies. Apparently that was not a great idea. I bought two big banana bunches and my kids have already eaten an entire bunch. Now I get to go back to the store tomorrow to buy more. They also ate the entire can of smoked almonds I bought myself for snacks. My husband and I joke that we need to get our own cupboard and put a lock on it, I'm beginning to think it's not such a bad idea. I dread the thought of having two teenage boys, I think I throw in the towel already.

With it being the middle of winter I have been making a lot of soups and stews. I love having a hot meal when the weather is cold outside. Last week I tried a new recipe for Cabbage, White Bean, and Potato Soup from the January 2014 issue of Southern Living magazine.

This recipe has 9 ingredients. It takes 30 minutes of total time, all of which is active and makes 10 cups. I did make a few changes to the original recipe. First, I used small red potatoes cut into fourths instead of fingerling potatoes. Fingerling potatoes were overpriced at my local grocery store and would have cost 2 1/2 times as much as the red potatoes I bought. For the chicken broth, I used homemade. I have discussed many times about the benefits of homemade stock, it's cheaper, tastes better, and you can control the amount of sodium. I chose not to add Parmesan cheese as a topping for my serving, but my husband and two boys did.

If you are serving this soup for dinner it needs a sandwich served with it in order to be filling. Alone it doesn't have enough protein or fat to be filling for most adults. It would be great with grilled cheese or a grilled (or not) turkey sandwich. The flavors are great and with a sandwich it would be a quick evening meal.

For the recipe go to Cabbage, White Bean, and Potato Soup.

Senate Bean Soup

We eat a lot of beans in our house. My oldest son absolutely loves any type of bean and will pick them out of dishes. He is the only child I know that loves beans more than basically any other type of food. Luckily for him we live in a state that also loves beans and dried beans are available everywhere. My husband is on a diet where he eats beans at every meal, so I prepare beans very frequently. Of all the members of my family I am the one that gets bored with food the easiest. I like to change up my menu plans and recipes as frequently as possible. A few weeks back I tried a new recipe for Senate Bean Soup from Savuer magazine, which looked different than my usual bean routine and perfect for my bean loving family.

This recipe has 6 ingredients. It takes a total of an hour and twenty minutes and makes 4-6 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store and I made no ingredient modifications. The ham hocks that I ended up purchasing were slim on meat, so my soup had less meat than it would if I had used meatier ham hock. I let my beans cook for an additional ten minutes after mashing a portion of them in order for them to fully thicken. Make sure to adequately salt, it takes a lot to taste fully flavorful. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

My two sons really enjoyed this recipe. It was very easy to follow and took little effort to prepare. The leftovers re-heated well the next day and it made more than enough for two meals. Bean soup is a great way to save money and takes only a few dollars to make. I love making large batches of bean soup and freezing the leftovers for future meals. This recipe would be perfect for this purpose.

For the recipe go to Senate Bean Soup.