Mexican Minestrone Recipe

My 15 year old son needed to bring a Mexican food to a Cinco de Mayo celebration (which is today, Dos de Mayo, but hey....whatever!) and so we made this super easy and delicious soup. I am HAPPY to say that it is healthy, inexpensive, quick, and MSG-free! Woot!

In a crock pot, combine:

two 15-ounce cans black beans

two 14.5-ounce cans of diced or stewed tomatoes (read those labels--I found stewed tomatoes with high fructose corn syrup in it! ugh)

28 ounces of vegetable broth

15 ounce can of corn, or the equivalent of frozen corn

15 ounce can garbanzo beans (aka chick peas)

2 cups of diced potatoes

2 cups frozen green beans

1 cup salsa

Cook on low for 9-11 hours, or on high for 4.5-5.5 hours. You can serve it with a dollop of sour cream if you want to. :)

If you want to be even thriftier, you can always use dry beans and just soak them overnight. Drain off the water in the morning, and throw those soaked beans into the crock pot to cook along with everything else. I would say that you would probably only need about a cup-and-a-half of the black beans, and about 3/4 of a cup of the garbanzo.

I've noticed that a lot of crock pot recipes require you to do a whole lot of advance cooking before putting the stuff into the pot. I like ones where you just throw the stuff in and come back later to a meal. :)

We'll be having this soup tomorrow night along with a loaf of fresh honey whole wheat bread. Yum!