Alphabet soup

 

Very hearty, tomato-y, yummy!

I found a recipe online and decided I had to try it because it had SMOKED PAPRIKA in it!  However, you should know by now how well I follow directions.  I do not follow them very well at all. In fact, I followed the directions so poorly that I'm not even linking to the original recipe.

Here's what I did:

6 cups veggie broth
1 onion diced
1.5 red bell peppers diced ('cause that's what I had--could be 1 or 2)
3 small yukon gold potatoes
2 cans garbanzo beans
3 carrots diced
3 stalk celery diced
2 cloves garlic
2 bay leaves

I diced all the above veggies and through them into a big pan with the veggie broth. I added all the ingredients above this line and let things cook for 30 or 40 minutes so they got nice and soft.

Next, I added all these ingredients:
1 24 ounce jar of tomato sauce
1-2 teaspoons dried basil
1-2 teaspoons dried oregano
1-2 tablespoons smoked paprika
1-2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne (could be more, but I didn't want it to be too spicy for the girls)

I let things cook a bit longer... 20 or so... maybe longer. I was doing other things around the house.

Then a couple hours went by and the soup was on "low." I had to taken a sick kitty to the vet; when I got back and looked at the soup (and tasted it) I decided it would be PERFECT to add alphabet letters to!
So I added:

1 cup alphabet letters
3-4 cups water  'cause it was really thick and I knew it would just get thicker.  (You can add whatever amount of water you want, really.  I could have added a little more.)
After the letters cooked, I added a LOT of baby kale. Then my husband asked if I could stick in a vegan sausage for flavor, so I stuck in one Italian one.

Serve! Enjoy!
Add black pepper to taste

 

The letters!

Results:
5 out of 5 ate it and liked it. The youngest liked it the least well and that was surprising to me, but she did like it.