I must have mentioned in one of my posts about how we have been trying to eat healthy to lose weight. I know that just cutting out rice doesn’t result in weight loss and that we should actually exercise. But, with Arlo being my full-time job now, I haven’t had a bit time to go out for a walk. Every evening I decide to go for a walk, but either it’s chilly or it’s raining (Welcome to Kansas). Every weekend I at least take him out to the grocery store and walk as much as we can. But still, it doesn’t count as exercise. So VJ and I decided that the least we can do is to control our diet and reduce the carbs.

I know what you are thinking! Aren’t beans also carbs? Well yeah, but they also have a bit of protein, fiber, and loads of vegetables. Today I was running out of veggies so did not use as many as I usually use. My sister from another mother – Shilpa is my inspiration behind making soups. I have seen her make so many soups and try and be healthy. Also, my another sister from another mother – Amrita makes them too. Her husband who is VJ’s colleague and lunch-mate always gets soups for lunch and it boggled me how they can be so healthy.

So taking them as inspiration, I set out to Shilpa’s website to get some recipes and also Pintrest to see if I can find some more. And of course there are a bunch of them available, but I had to choose my favorite and also something that would be filling. Recently a friend asked me for the recipe and I decided to put out the simplest form of it here. The bean mix is readily available at Walmart as 16 Bean Soup or 15 Bean Soup Mix. If not you can use a bunch of beans that you find at your home. The bean soup mix has garbanzo beans, pinto beans, cannellini beans, white beans, kidney beans, black beans, split dried green peas, mung beans, lima beans, pearl barley, split dried yellow peas and a lot more. So you can probably use garbanzo beans (chickpeas), split dried green peas (dried batani), split dried yellow peas (pigeon peas), kidney beans (Rajma), Black eyed peas, Pinto beans and mung dal (green gram). So here’s the recipe for the soup.

 

Ingredients

16 bean soup mix (or a mix of all the beans you have available) – 1 cup

Onion – 1 medium sized chopped into bite-sized pieces

Carrots – 1 whole chopped into small pieces

Tomatoes – 4 chopped into small pieces or pureed into a paste

Veggie Broth – 2 cups

Rice Flour – 1 teaspoon

Salt – As required

Bay leaves – 2

Oil – 1 teaspoon

How to Make

Step 1: Wash and soak the beans overnight or at least 8 hours.

Step 2: In a pressure cooker, once heated, add oil. Once the oil is hot, add the bay leaves and the Onions. As the onions turn translucent, add the carrots and give it a quick stir. Leave it for 3 minutes before adding the tomatoes.

Step 3: Once the tomatoes are added, leave it for 5 minutes and then add the veggie broth. Keep aside a few tablespoons of the broth aside in a small cup. Once the broth has been added, add the salt and the soaked beans.

Step 4: Close the lid of the pressure cooker and let it cook for 2 long whistles or for 5 short ones. As the cooker is cooling down, add the rice flour to the kept aside broth and give it a quick mix. Once the cooker has cooled down enough to remove the lid, add the broth with the rice flour and heat up the soup again. I added the rice flour to thicken the soup but this step can be totally be skipped.

Step 5: Serve soup with croutons or any other crisps that go well with soup.

Tips

1. You can also add celery, spinach, kale, squash, bell pepper and also corn if you don’t mind.

Po