Pasta Soup

What you'll Need:

*Slow cooker
*1 medium onion
*2/3 cup chopped celery (or a little more)
*2 cloves garlic, minced
*Handful of fresh oregano chopped or 1tsp dried oregano
*Rosemary or dried rosemary
*28oz can diced tomatoes or the equivalent of fresh ones (look for BPA-FREE cans)
*"10 bean soup mix" available in Sprouts' bulk section (about 1 cup)
If you don't find this exactly, get creative. Most grocery stores have a bulk section with various beans/soup mixes. You'll want about 1 cup or a little less of DRIED beans.
*4 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
*Pinch of salt to taste
*Pepper to taste
*1 cup or 8 oz orzo pasta
*fresh or dried parsley
*2 cups water

You'll want to start this about 4 hours before you plan on eating it.
Start by adding 4 cups veggie stock/broth and 2 cups water to slow cooker. Add the 1 cup of beans or soup mix from bulk section. add any dried seasonings at this time and the Tomatoes. Set cooker to high heat for 2-3 hours. Stir sometimes.

When you check back make sure your beans aren't over cooking and it shouldn't be boiling if it is turn to low heat. After 3 hours I sautéed the chopped onion, garlic and celery. And added it to the mix. Set to low heat now if not already set there.

Around 4 hours I added the Orzo Pasta and let soak with the mix on low heat for about 20 minutes. If you have fresh seasonings now's the time to add them.

After 4 hours and 20 minutes, the beans should be cooked along with the pasta, the seasonings should be well flavored in the soup. If your soup looks more like pasta and veggies with some sauce, you can add water and more veggie stock to get a more liquid-y texture. (I added about 1 cup broth and 1 cup water at the end and allowed it to heat thoroughly).

In the end it should look something like this:


we ate ours with grilled cheese and it was delish., your could too, to keep the meal vegan just use sliced soy cheese. enjoy!

p.s. I should mention this makes a lot. The 3 of us each had a good size bowl and I saved 4 1/2 ball jars (about 2 cups each) of soup/pasta, We'll probably finish it for lunches. But, I actually froze some for when baby get's here, too. That way we won't have to cook... for at least one night.