Soups On! Harvest Vegetable & Wild Rice

Hey everyone....let's talk soup. I love making soup. Its also a fantastic way to stretch a buck. A big pot of soup on Sunday provides delicious and nutritional lunches for the upcoming week. If you don't feel like having soup for lunch everyday just freeze half and you'll always have a quick go to when your pinched for time. The soup I made today is a Harvest Vegetable and Wild Rice. The base for my broth soups never changes, but where I go from there is always open to interpretation. This one turned out to be super easy, super tasty and crazy cheap.

What you will need:

1 medium sweet yellow onion ($.75)

1 tbs olive oil

3 cups low sodium chicken broth ($1.00)

4 cloves garlic ($.10)

2 can tomato sauce ($1.00)

1 bag frozen soup vegetables ($1.15)

1 bag frozen cauliflower and broccoli ($1.15)

1 box long grain wild rice with seasoning packet ($1.75)

1/2 cup pearl barley ($.30)

1 tbs sriracha

1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp fresh cracked pepper

4-6 cups water

How to make it happen:

I start by chopping the onion and getting it going in the hot olive oil. I like to rough chop the garlic for this soup so you can really taste it on your spoon. I let my onion go for about 15 minutes because i love the flavor that comes once it starts to really carmelize. I throw the garlic in for the last couple of minutes of the saute. Add the chicken broth, water, tomato sauce and all your spice including the spice packet in the wild rice. Bring this to a boil and add the rice and barley. Drop the heat down to medium and give the rice and barley about 25 minutes to do their thing. Add the frozen vegetables and simmer another half hour of so. The sriracha and crushed pepper flakes really deepen the flavor in this soup without over heating it. I'm pretty pleased with this one and will be adding it to my list of everyday recipes. It truly is a budget friendly recipe. A weeks worth of lunches for the family for under $8. Try it and if you improve upon it...please let me know so i can give it a shot.