Minnesota Vikings Soup

This is a “clean out your refrigerator” soup for those times when you’ll be gone for a few days and need to use up your produce. I essentially threw every vegetable I could find in my house into this soup. I could have called it Rainbow Soup, but I didn't add anything red. That could be easily remedied by adding some canned or frozen tomatoes.

So Rainbow Soup would have been a fun title, but after adding a half of a small purple cabbage, everything was dyed a beautiful shade of MN Vikings Purple. And why not celebrate a team that keeps on winning games? It's kind of fun to have a winning team! That Favre guy seems to know what he’s doing.

The next day, the purple soup will have become even more shockingly bright and will have dyed all your pretty veggies and beans (everything but the kale) indigo. You will scare your co-workers when you heat this up at the communal microwave. Just a warning.

Minnesota Vikings Soup (aka Rainbow Soup, aka Everything But the Kitchen Sink Soup)

½ yellow onion, diced

2-3 orange carrots, peeled and diced

2-3 yellow carrots, peeled and diced

1 parsnip, peeled and diced

1 medium Yukon gold potato, diced

2 ribs celery, diced

2 bay leaves

6 cups water and bouillon cubes or stock

½ small head of purple (or green) cabbage, chopped

1 bunch kale or chard, removed from stem and chopped

1 can white beans, drained and rinsed

freshly grated parmesan cheese

In a big soup pot, heat some olive oil and add the onion, carrots, parsnip, potato and celery. Add bay leaves and salt and pepper to taste. Cook until veggies are soft, about 10-15 minutes.

Add water and bouillon cubes (or stock) and bring to a boil. Add chopped cabbage and kale and beans. Cover and simmer another 10-15 minutes. Serve topped with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Note: In hindsight, the name of this soup may be a bit insulting since the purple cabbage was a gift from my Packer-fan friend Sarah! Though I did include cheese in the recipe to appease her and any other Wisconsonites out there.