We eat a lot of soup.

Soup is easy to prepare, and it can usually cook all day in the Crock Pot. Plus, it’s usually healthy and can include lots of great, fresh, whole foods.

Or, if you’re so inclined, you can use soup to hide a lot of great, fresh whole foods from picky eaters.

Chef Jill Houk from Sara Lee made this soup for us at the Sara Lee Back to School Nutrition Summit. I loved it.

I loooooved it.

I loved it so much that I might just make it tomorrow. It was that good.

And, it could be used to hide some cooked carrots or squash. Experiment, and see what you like to hide from your kids.

Black Bean and Roasted Red Pepper Soup

• 

  1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

• 1 small shallot, diced fine
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 2 cups cooked black beans with cooking liquid*
• 1 cup roasted red peppers, drained and rinsed
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1. Heat a large, heavy saucepot over medium heat. Add oil and shallots and cook slowly 5-7 minutes until shallots are limp and translucent.
2. Add garlic, cook 30 seconds. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer. Simmer, uncovered 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Working in batches, blend until smooth in a blender or food processor. Return to pot. Re-heat. Taste soup and adjust seasonings, if necessary.

*Note from Chef Jill – I cook my own beans in a slow cooker. However, the soup is still delicious with canned beans. What I would do is drain and rinse the beans, then put the drained beans into the soup with a cup of water, veggie broth or chicken broth.

*Note from me – I wrote about preparing your own beans yesterday. Go read the tutorial and see how easy it is to prepare your own beans.

Grace’s Kitchen Friends

Please join in Grace’s Kitchen Friends! To play along, all you have to do is fill out MckLinky below.  You can link up any post that talks about kids and food:

• feeding kids
• cooking with kids
• kids’ nutrition
• play with food or play kitchens
• crafts with or about food
• There are a lot of other kids and food things I haven’t listed (like growing food with kids or fun recipes that kids love!), so please don’t feel limited.

I’m easy like that, Dear Reader. The only thing I ask is that you link back here to Grace’s Kitchen Friends in your post. I can’t wait to see what your kids are doing!

Happily submitted to Grocery Cart Challenge, Ultimate Recipe Swap, Friday Feasts, Foodie Friday, Family Recipe Friday, Favorite Ingredient Friday, and Food on Friday

Photo courtesy of Gezellig-girl on Flickr