Vegetable and White Bean Soup, or As You Like It

A typical sort of end-of-the-week soup.

Ingredients

• 1 head broccoli, chopped into florets, stem peeled and chopped
• 1 summer squash, halved and chopped
• 1/2 sweet potato, chopped
• a handful of baby carrots, chopped
  
• 1/4 green bell pepper, chopped
• 4 mushrooms (crimini), halved and sliced or quartered
• 1 15-oz. tin canellini beans, drained and rinsed
  
• 2.25 bouillon cubes
• ~4 c. water
• 1.5 tsp garam marsala
• about 1 tsp chopped garlic
  
• chili powder and cayenne pepper, salt and pepper
  

Methodology

1. Put water in a pot with bouillon and some garlic. Bring water to a boil and put in sweet potato, broccoli, and carrots. Let them boil until somewhat tender and add beans, mushrooms, bell pepper, and squash.

2. Add seasoning and taste. When sweet potatoes are cooked, the whole thing is pretty much done. Serve with toast.

Notes

*Eating this directly after a 6-mile run, I was so hungry I burned my tongue. The soup was good, but nothing fantastic - certainly not really anything to blog about. But today, eating the leftovers for lunch, I find that it has become a fantastic, spicy dish. The beans start to disintegrate and thicken the broth. So I recommend making this a day ahead. Also it uses a minimal number of pots and there's not much clean-up. Hurrah.

*Can probably be done with whatever veg you have lying around - I'd recommend bak choi, maybe some spinach. Tomatoes might be nice, too. I didn't have any.

*3/7 on the disaster scale.