Happy New Year!
What’s a new year without a resolution right? I’ve been thinking the past few days about
mine: the 876th diet attempt, being nicer, laughing more, yada yada yada. Last
night as I was preparing my New Year’s Eve soups (see prior post) it was
made abundantly clear as to what my new year’s resolution will be: simplicity.
I need to stop trying to do it all. You know the ol’ "less is more," "quality over
quantity," etc.
I was preparing three soups: taco soup, broccoli cheese and
New Year’s Day good luck soup. In my
mind this was going to be an uber-relaxing day full of great music, cooking,
photographing and blogging my soups until my guests arrived. I was wrong. I got a way late start because I was trying
to do too much like clean out a closet and reorganize my kitchen cabinets. I even made a run to the mall for hand soap
and wash cloths because I couldn’t find any. I forgot that I wanted to make
guacamole and I still needed to chop all of my veggies for my hummus. Needless to say, documenting these soups didn’t
quite happen as I had hoped for as I was just starting cooking when my friend’s
arrived.
Let me tell you why simplicity is my new resolution. Here’s what went wrong:
I bought fancy-smanshy bread and put it in the oven to
cook. An hour and a half later I found
it…charred unrecognizably. 2013: I’m buying crackers only.
I put my three soups in my brand-spanking-new 3 pot
crockpot to cook and keep warm as we ate throughout the night. Forgot to plug it in. Didn’t notice until a
couple of hours later. 2013: I’m preparing one soup. The other two will be frozen or canned.
Forgot to put in two main ingredients that thickens the
broccoli cheese soup until it was too late. 2013: Eat it anyway.
2013: forget the organizing, cleaning, buying hand-soap
and making appetizers.
Here is the recipe and pictures for New Year’s Day Good Luck
Soup. Even though I probably didn’t do this recipe justice in pictures, it still
turned out pretty good.
Ingredients:
1 package of carving board ham
2 celery ribs
1 medium onion
2 carrots
2 garlic cloves
2 (15-ounce) cans black-eyed peas
2 (14 1/2-ounce) cans low-sodium, fat-free chicken broth
2 (14 1/2-ounce) cans no-salt-added stewed tomatoes
1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce
2 cups chopped fresh kale
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley (Tbsp of dried parsley)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Chop your onions, garlic and carrots in a food processor.
Dice your celery and sauté in a stockpot along with your
onions, carrots and garlic. 
Add your broth, tomatoes, tomato sauce, black beans, kale
and ham and simmer about 30 minutes. I
chopped up the kale and used frozen black beans. I bought the pre-cooked
carving board ham for convenience. I would recommend that you use canned black-eyed peas if you are in a hurry because the frozen took a while to become tender. You can substitute spinach for kale if you
like.
At first I didn’t think I was going to like this soup but
after it cooked in the crockpot for a while, the flavors married nicely and the
kale and black-eyes peas cooked well. I enjoyed this healthy soup and I think it will be my new New Year's tradition!
I added a little Parmesan cheese and pita chips. Yummy.
Cheers to a simplified 2013!
‘Till next time,
Natalie
Natalie
