Recipe Saturday: Roasted Tomato White Bean Soup

I have a gingerbread cookie recipe that requires much thinking ahead.  Last night, I mixed brown sugar, butter, molasses, and spices in a saucepan and brought them to a boil.  I covered the saucepan and left it at room temperature overnight.  This morning I added flour and a teaspoon of baking soda--now the dough chills for a few hours.

I will probably make some Santa Lucia bread dough to bake tomorrow morning.  And I may make a different kind of Christmas cookie.

Yes, it's that time of year, the time of baking, the time when I'm tempted to eat only baked goods.  Do we really need vegetables?

Of course we do, and let me record a delicious soup I sort of created.  By sort of created, I mean I saw a New York Times recipe for a roasted tomato white bean soup, but when I went back the next day to look for it again, it was behind a pay wall that I can't access, even though I have an online subscription.  So I did some Googling and came up with my own variation.

First, I roasted 3 containers of cherry/grape tomatoes, the smaller containers (12-16 oz).  I put all the tomatoes in a 9 x 13 inch pan along with a few cloves of garlic sliced , drizzled them with olive oil, and put them in a 350 degree oven for an hour, while I was roasting other veggies.

I thought I would finish the recipe in the afternoon, but I didn't get back to it the next day.  I cut up an onion, drizzled it with olive oil, and cooked it until it was soft in a soup pot.  The recipe called for chopped Italian parsley, but I didn't have that--I imagine it would have increased the deliciousness.   I added the tomatoes to the pot, along with 2 cans of cannelini beans, and a cup and a half of water.  I added basil and oregano and let everything simmer.

I've taken some of this soup with me every day this week for lunch.  In the morning, I put some frozen spinach in the container with the soup.  It is delicious and carries me through the afternoon.

I'm surprised how much more delicious it is to have the roasted tomatoes in the soup than to have canned tomatoes.  One day, I had some leftover garbanzo beans, so I added those, and that worked well.  It tasted great without the spinach and also great with it.  I imagine it would go well with any number of greens.  You could roast the tomatoes for less time, or you could do like I did, leave the pan unattended for hours while crashing into a nap.

I love that the recipe is easy and flexible and delicious--and healthy.  It's the kind of recipe we need in a holiday season.