Happy Organic Family: This Soup Rocks!

On days when we are not going to be home until close to dinner time, the crock pot is my appliance of choice. In the morning, all of the ingredients go in...and when we arrive home for dinner, the house has a wonderful aroma and dinner is served!

Really, almost anything put into the crock pot for a day of cooking comes out tasting pretty good. But this recipe is my current favorite. It is my version of "Chicken-less Noodle Soup" and darn good! Watch out little red and white can full of questionable ingredients.......and hello delish, nutritious soup!

Chickpea Noodle Soup

Ingredients: (Note: all ingredients are organic...duh!)

*1/2 of a large onion, chopped - use more or less depending on your taste for onions, of course.

*1-2 cups of chopped tomatoes (You could use canned or fresh. I prefer to avoid cans if at all possible....a topic for another post. Instead, I freeze organic whole plum tomatoes in the summer when they are abundant and inexpensive. When I need them, I simply leave them out for a bit or run them under warm water. The skins come right off, and I can chop them up and add them to soups or stews all winter).

*1-2 cups of cooked chickpeas, depending on your love for them. Of course, you could substitute a different bean, but why would you want to mess with perfection? :)

(I buy beans dry and cook up big batches at a time. I then freeze them in mason jars and use them as I would canned. Healthier and cheaper too).

*Chopped up veggies.....I used frozen corn and green beans in this soup. Carrots would also be good, but I was running short.

*1 tbsp. olive oil

*leftover brown rice pasta spaghetti

Put the olive oil and the chopped onions into the crock pot. Turn it on "high" and let cook for about 1/2 hour. Then add all other ingredients and fill to near the top with water. You can add spices at this point, but we like it fairly plain. I leave my crock pot on "high" all day, though it would probably also work at a lower temp. And, of course, you could just make this in a pot on the stove, if you'd rather.

At dinnertime, put a small handful of leftover pasta in the bottom of each bowl and then fill with soup. Add a good amount of nutritional yeast (love this stuff!), a pinch of salt, and a grind of pepper.

Enjoy!