Purple Vegetable Soup

Last week we experienced what I hope was our last cold streak. It went from being in the mid 80's to a high of 45 degrees in twenty four hours. The result of this--besides a stuffed nose--was me craving some hearty vegetable soup. So Brian and I went to the co-op, bought a bunch of veggies, I browsed numerous soup/stock recipes, and this is what I came up with. The purple carrots made it very purple, but oh so delicious.


Purple Vegetable Soup (makes 10 servings)

You'll need:
6 purple carrots
1/2 onion
4 cloves of garlic
8 stalks of celery
5 red potatoes
2 cups of peas
a handful of each of the following (soaked overnight)
red lentils
green lentils
white beans
kidney beans
black beans
pinto beans
2 cup vegetable stock
half a bottle of beer (or wine if you're so inclined)
1 tbsp olive oil
water

Cut up the carrots, celery and onion, and saute it with the crushed garlic cloves in olive oil in the bottom of your soup pot. Once everything begins to soften, add the beer and turn it down low. Let it simmer for like 45 minutes.

Drain the water from your beans, and boil them in fresh water until soft (about 45 minutes). Then drain the water and add them with the stock to the soup pot. Chop and add your potatoes. Add a little water to cover everything, and whatever spices you like, and add the peas. Then bring it to a boil, turn down the stove and let the soup simmer until the potatoes are soft. Don't serve it too hot or it masks the flavors.

A word of caution: this makes a lot of soup. It barely fit in my huge Le Creuset pot. But it's so good we've gone through it amazingly fast. In fact for dinner tonight we should finish it up. Enjoy!