With the Dunedin winter well and truly here, and a new baby in tow, we have been relying on meal prep, soups and slow cooker recipes. This tomato and white bean soup is loaded with goodness, while being easy to make and budget-friendly. A great winter warmer dinner to get you through these cold nights. Packed with protein and seasonal vegetables, making it both filling, nutritious and delicious. Making plenty at a time means you'll have leftovers for the freezer. Crockpot recipe Makes 4 litres 1 brown onion 4 cloves garlic 1 tsp salt 1 tsp black pepper ½ tsp ground coriander ½ tsp ground cumin 1 sprig rosemary 2 large potatoes 4 stalks of celery 2 carrots 3 stalks/heads of silver beet or kale 2 × 400g tins of chopped tomatoes 1 400g tin white beans 1 litre beef stock — can replace with chicken or vege 1 cup of water Method Using your crock pot, set your settings to sear/saute. Dice your onions and garlic, chop your rosemary and add to the hot crock pot with a little oil, stir as needed. While this is melting down, you can peel, chop and dice your potatoes, dice your celery, carrots and silver beet stalks — leaving the heads for later. Add your spices and seasonings to your onions and continue to cook for a few minutes before adding the rest of your prepped vegetables. Stirring as you cook these down until they're lightly browned and melted down before adding your tinned tomatoes, beans, stock and water. Cover your crock pot with the lid and change the setting to slow-cook for four hours on high or low for eight hours. Once ready, I like to take some out and blitz it up in the blender to get that creaminess to the soup — this is a personal preference, you absolutely don't have to. If you want to then I just remove about half the soup and blitz it up, adding it back to the pot to mix in afterwards. Once you've done this, you can roughly chop your silver beet or kale and add it to the soup. I pop it back on slow-cook for a further 15-30 minutes and you're done. For serving you can chop some fresh herbs, add feta or sour cream, even a little chilli oil — whatever your preference is. Serving with a nice crusty piece of bread, baked with garlic and/or cheese would be the perfect way to have this hearty and delicious soup.
