Black Bean and Vegetable Soup

One of the toughest things we as moms deal with is getting our kids to not only eat but also enjoy vegetables. It is a delicate balancing act. I don’t want my daughter to think of vegetables as the healthy but yucky tasting part of her diet. We eat a ton of vegetables at home because we get a large CSA box each week. She has been exposed to pretty much everything at this point. I want her to love all different kinds of flavors and vegetables are simply a part of that entire package in her diet. However, she happens to be 4 and a half and she has been a bit off of vegetables. Now she just takes one taste and proceeds onto other areas of her plate.

But, in the past few weeks, something has changed. She has started eating mushrooms again which she used to love so much she would polish off an entire bowl. She also has developed a taste for red peppers and for little yellow pear tomatoes from our garden. (note: if I buy her the same variety of tomatoes from the farmers market she rejects them flat out!)

The Surprise Request

And then something really magical happened. Last Wednesday, she asked me to make her some vegetable soup with black beans. And she got specific. She asked for me to add in these vegetables only: peppers, tomatoes (any variety apparently), onions, carrots, and arugula. Yes folks I was beaming. Could our vegetable rut be over?

We made the soup and she enjoyed two bowls at dinner and also another helping for lunch the next day at school. It really was tasty and very easy to put together if you already have a batch of my homemade black beans in the freezer. If not, you just need to prepare the black beans the night before you make the soup per my black bean recipe.

Black Bean and Vegetable Soup

This recipe makes about 2 quarts of soup

Ingredients

• one batch homemade black beans
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 tomatoes, diced
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 large handfuls arugula
• 1 red or yellow pepper, diced

Directions

Bring your batch of homemade black beans to a simmer. Add in the salsa and the various diced vegetables and simmer until tender, about 30-40 minutes.