Tomato-Rice Soup with Roasted Garlic & Navy Beans

So this is the dinner I was supposed to make Wed. night, but I forgot about the roasting garlic thing. So last night I started roasting the garlic at 3:30! Roasted garlic makes the whole house smell really good, by the way. This soup was easy to make. The most time-intensive part was the garlic roasting, and that is just waiting for it to be done. To roast the garlic, you just cut off about half an inch of the top of the bulb, drizzle olive oil over it, wrap it in tin foil, then put it in the oven. When it’s done and has cooled, you just squeeze it and all the garlicky goodness comes oozing out. The rest of the recipe is just adding ingredients and letting it simmer. Toby said he thought it needed some “kick”. I disagree. He said that is was ok, but that I had made other stuff so much better, he would rather have other recipes again instead of this one. And now I have 2 vats of it in my freezer to eat all by myself (this recipe makes ALOT). I served this with yeast rolls and a green salad.

rating: 6

Tomato-Rice Soup with Roasted Garlic & Navy Beans
(“Veganomicon- the Ultimate Vegan Cookbook” by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero)

Ingredients:

2 bulbs garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium-sized yellow onion, diced as small as possible
1 cup long-grain brown rice
2 bay leaves
2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried marjoram
2 tsp salt
several pinches of freshly ground black pepper
2 (28-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
1 (15-ounce) can navy beans, drained and rinsed (about 1.5 cups)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Roast the garlic for about 45 minutes, until soft. You should be able to feel if it’s soft by pressing with a knife or your finger. Preheat a soup pot over medium heat. Saute the onions in the olive oil for 5-7 minutes, until translucent. Add the rice, bay leaves, thyme, marjoram, salt, and pepper and cook, stirring, for about 2 minutes. Add the crushed tomatoes, then fill up the can with water twice and add the water (so that’s 56 ounces of water). Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for about 45 minutes. Remove the garlic from the oven. When it is cool enough to handle, squeeze the roasted garlic out of its skin and into a small bowl. Use a fork to mash the garlic to a relatively smooth consistency, then add to the soup once the rice is nearly tender. When the rice is completely cooked, add the beans and heat through. Then it’s ready to serve- just remove the bay leaves beforehand.