On Sat, 12 May 2012 01:07:02 -0700, "Julie Bove"
> wrote:

>My daughter really loves this soup and I like it too but it is expensive to
>buy! I want to make a big pot of it but am unsure really of where to start.
>Here is the soup:
>
>http://www.amazon.com/Don-Pomodoro-N.../dp/B004Q6RZGG
>
>And here are the ingredients:
>
>Beans, water, pulp of tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil, onion, sea salt,
>garlic, parsley , chili pepper, rosemary, rice syrup from organic farming.

The jarred version is pricey because it's, well a jar. I see nothing
expensive about that soup (not even any mystery meat), and nothing
difficult. To be honest from reading those ingredients I wouldn't pay
more than a buck for that jar, I wouldn't even call that soup, it's
just a mish mosh of ingredients thrown together... you can make
exactly the same thing by adding a can of beans to any jar of pasta
sauce of your choice.

>I am pretty sure the beans are canellini or white kidney beans which I will
>look for tomorrow at Whole Foods. I have found canned but not the dried.
>They have a lot of beans there.

Canned beans work as well or better, they also cost less when you buy
the larger cans... and canned saves a lot of cooking time plus there's
no crap shoot as to how they'll turn out. For a large pot of bean
soup buy a #10 can... if you are going to cook large pots of soup
regularly you can save even more by buying large cans by the case. I
buy several types of canned beans in the 40 ounce size, most
stupidmarkets carry that size, it's a very handy size and it works out
to cost substantially less than the 16 ounce cans, and they aren't
even 16 ounces anymore.

>What is the pulp of tomatoes? Would that be crushed? Pureed?

I'd say tomato paste... in prepared canned/jarred goods tomato paste
would be listed as "tomato concentrate" or "tomato pulp".... look at
your bottle of Heinz ketchup, it lists tomato concentate. All
canned/bottled tomato juice is made with tomato concentrate... it's
much less expensive to make your own with paste. Vine ripened
tomatoes can't be shipped so they bring/trailer the tomato paste
factory to the field, where tanker trucks are filled, and then truck
all that paste to local canneries... it costs much less to truck paste
than water. Of course for soup you can use any of the canned tomato
products. I usually mix and match, if I want some texture I use about
half crushed tomatoes.

>What exactly
>is chili pepper? Is it a certain kind of pepper? The soup doesn't seen to
>have any heat to it that I can see.

Probably a small smidge of cayenne... something you add to taste, or
omit.

>And I assume that the syrup is brown
>rice syrup. I will look for that too.

Probably needed a bit of sweetener, any sweetener would work... you
may consider adding a grated carrot. You can use ordinary olive oil
or any salad oil. You can use ordinary salt, I don't think people
should be ingesting sea salt... anyone who has ever bathed in the
Coney Island surf wouldn't. You don't need a recipe, you don't need
to measure anything, I never do... I just add n' taste until whichever
size pot I chose is full to the brim.