Let's Cook and Be Friends: Roasted Tomato and Garbanzo Bean Soup

Today, I will share with you a simple recipe full of healthy ingredients that will satisfy your belly and your taste buds. This soup is perfect for pot lucks because it is something everyone can eat: vegetarians, vegans, gluten intolerant, people on diets, and so on.

Last week was Classified Staff Week so I made this dish for the special group of ladies that I work with every day... my wonderful classroom support staff. They always help me keep my head above water. Ok… before anything else, do you wanna know what a horrid person I am? I took a sick day last Monday, which meant that I had the dates off for the rest of the week and did not realize it was Classified Staff Week until Thursday. Terrible, right?

Honestly, without my amazing co-workers, I don’t know how I would be able to keep up with my students and all the other extra things that come along with my job. Our classroom staff is composed of individuals with very different personalities and altogether, we make an awesome team. Each one brings her own qualities that contribute to the success of our program: resourcefulness, calm, dedication, humor, cheerfulness, energy, quick-thinking, courage, confidence, intelligence, compassion, caring, strength, quick feet, and patience, lots of patience. What more could one ask for? I’m lucky to work with such great people!

The main ingredients that I wanted in this soup were tomatoes and the abundant amount of boiled garbanzo beans in my refrigerator (left from the Hummus Served Hot recipe). Tomatoes are one of my favorite vegetables, they are so flavorful and they can turn every simple thing into something special. However, they are blah when not in season… so I roasted them with a little bit of salt to bring the flavors out. This really helped add flavor to the dish and I recommend doing this. I also recommend using dry beans and soaking them overnight. A note on soaking beans overnight: Make sure to change the water as often as you remember to do so because soaked beans tend to emit a funky smell after a few hours. I think I changed the water 5-6 times over the span of 20 hours.

Roasted Tomato and Garbanzo Bean Soup

Roasted Tomatoes
1 tsp olive oil
1 pint grape tomatoes
¼ tsp salt

Sautéed Vegetables
2 tsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, diced
½ head of a cauliflower
1 large bell pepper, diced
4 kale leaves, roughly chopped
2 tsp garam masala
¼ tsp salt

Soup
1, 5.5 fl oz can tomato juice
1, 14.5 oz can fire roasted tomatoes
1 cup water from cooked beans
5 cups cooked garbanzo beans
½ tsp salt
sautéed vegetables
3 large carrots, diced
1 tsp fresh herbs: rosemary, oregano, thyme
1 tsp paprika
cardamom seeds, from 4 pods
¼ tsp salt
black pepper, freshly ground

Roasted Tomatoes:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Pour olive oil into a roasting pan. Add the grape tomatoes and stir with a wooden spatula, making sure that all tomatoes get coated with olive oil. Sprinkle salt over the tomatoes and give it a good stir again. Place the pan in the oven and roast for 16 minutes. Stir tomatoes halfway into the roasting time.

After taking the roasted tomatoes out of the oven, stir in the cut up peppers into the pan to soak up the juices from the tomatoes. Set aside.

Sautéed Vegetables:

Heat a large pan with 2 teaspoons of olive oil over medium heat. When the oil is hot, cook garlic until golden brown, about 1 minute. Add the onions and cook for about 1 minute. Add the cauliflower and cook for 30 seconds. Add the roasted tomatoes and peppers and cook for 2 minutes. Add the garam masala and stir well to evenly distribute the spice. Add the kale and cook until wilted, about 3 minutes. Add ¼ teaspoon of salt and cook for 1 more minute. Turn off the heat and set the pan aside.

Remember to keep stirring the vegetables as you add them in.

Soup:

In a large pan, pour in the tomato juice, canned tomatoes, and water from cooked beans. Heat the pot over medium heat. When the liquid starts to simmer, add the beans and toss in ½ teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil. When it starts boiling, add the sautéed vegetables and the carrots. Simmer, uncovered for about 10 minutes. Throw in the mixed fresh herbs, paprika, and cardamom. Add ¼ teaspoon salt to taste and as much pepper as you want.