BY ORLANDO:

One of our staple recipes in our home has become CABBAGE SOUP. We receive “shares” of different organic veggies and fruits every week. One week’s share had a head of cabbage in it, and I had no idea what to do with it. For a week I would look at it in the refridgerator with both fear and contempt. Caro suggested I make a soup out of it, so I looked up some recipies. I found a Weight Watcher’s recipe that got extremely high ratings. I read the reviews and took suggestions from others who have already made the soup (as you should do any time you follow a recipe). I added the red beans, which I think really round-out the soup. I also added the asparagus and the Rotele sauce in place of tomato paste. Feel free to add or subtract any vegetable you want. The soup is amazing. You can eat all you want because it is nothing but healthy, delicious goodness. I make this once a week and have leftovers for Caro, the boys, and myself throughout the week.

One quick storage note: You may want to seperate the broth from the veggies when storing because the veggies soak-in the broth and leave you with very little broth for leftovers. I considered adding more broth to the recipe, but with all of the ingredients already in the recipe, my pot would over-flow.

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• 40 ounces of beef broth (you can add less in place of more veggie broth if you want. But the beef broth is awesome)
• 14 ounces veggie broth (1 small can…you can add more in place of beef broth if you want)
• 1/2 of a large head of cabbage sliced
• 1 leak sliced
• 1/2 of an onion sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic sliced
• 5 ounces of Rottele original tomato sauce (just over half of a small can…if you don’t like spicy buy the mild, but I found the original to be perfect)
• 1/2 cup of carrots sliced
• 2 zucchini sliced in thick chunks (about 1 inch so they don’t turn to mush in the soup)
• 2 yellow squash slice thick chunks
• 1 cup green beans trimmed (cut in bite-sized pieces. They can be a bit waxy in the soup, so you can just add more asparagus in their place)
• half a bunch of asparagus (cut in bite-sized pieces)
• 2 15.5 ounce cans small red beans (or whatever bean you like)and dont forget to drain the liquid from the can first!
• You can add a handful or two of spinach leaves in the last 5 minutes of the cooking process so they just wilt.
• olive oil
• Salt (I salt as I go adding veggies)
• Pepper
• 2 tsp dry basil
• 2 tsp dry oregano

DIRECTIONS

1. Cook olive oil, leaks, onions, jalapeño, carrots, and garlic in soup pot for 5 minutes at med-high heat. Add a sprinkle of salt at some point while stirring.

2. Add cabbage, squash, zucchini, green beans, and red beans. Add salt, pepper, basil, and oregano and stir at med-high until veggies cook down a bit (like 5 minutes). Optional: You can also add asparagus, mushrooms, spinach…read below

3. Add Rottele sauce and stir for 3-4 more minutes.

4. Add the beef and vegetable broth and bring to a boil.

5. Lower to a simmer for 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper if it needs it.

BY CAROLINE:

NOTE: This soup is the perfect example of two of the principles we follow:

1. TRY NEW FOODS: We had never had cabbage before, nor thought of buying it in the first place. But we are members of a coop that allows us to purchase organic fruits and vegetables at a better price straight from the farmers. The catch with this coop is that you get what you get. You don’t get to choose. So when our box brought a huge head of cabbage, we had no idea what to do with it. We put it off for about a week and then I told Orlando, we need to make this cabbage before it goes to waste. He looked up recipes with Cabbage and decided to try to the Cabbage Soup. Had it not been because we were FORCED into working with this vegetable, we would have never discovered this soup which we LOVE! Not only is it delicious but it is so hearty that it allows us to skip an animal protein on the nights we eat it. And we can have seconds without guilt because it is literally like drinking a bowl of medicine. Nothing but good healthy ingredients!

2. PILE ON THE GREENS: Orlando has taken this concept quite seriously and this is a perfect opportunity to apply this principle. Not only does Orlando put the veggies in the recipe…every time he makes it he adds something new. Now he makes the soup with SPINACH, MUSHROOMS, ASPARAGUS. He even tried SWEET POTATO last time although that wasn’t my favorite. The point is that you can add anything you want. If there is a veggie that you’re unlikely to try on its own or is not your favorite, just hide it in the soup. The more veggies, the better.

And yes…our kids eat this soup also!!! We make a huge pot of it and we have it in the fridge for several days. I serve it as lunch for us a couple of days later and I give it to the kids for dinner the following day. I play with it with the kids, for example: one day I’ll give it to Justin (my 1 1/2 year old) as soup, but the next day I’ll get his portion and blend it in the blender and make a puree to change the consistency for him. Another day I’ll make it on a bed of quinoa pasta or germinated brown rice, or I’ll make them a sweet potato and combine the two to make it a bit sweeter. I always try to keep it interesting for them. With my 3 year old, I make him guess what veggies are in there and we spend the whole meal talking about them. I’ve noticed the more I talk to him about the veggies, the more open he is to trying them.

WE HOPE YOU CAN MAKE THIS SOUP A STAPLE IN YOUR HOME ALSO!