Desiree's Low Fat Veggie Soup with Beans

You may use fresh or frozen ingredients. I used a mixture of both, because that's what I had. Like most soups, this is even better the next day.
This makes around 16 cups. Each cup is about 80 calories. If you omit the beans, it's a little over 60 calories per cup, but won't be as flavorful. If you want even fewer calories, and like really brothy soup, you can add a third carton of the vegetable stock. It tastes great and only has 40 calories for a 32oz carton!
1. In a food processor or blender mix the tomatoes, the onion, and the mushrooms until they're mush.
2. Chop all other veggies into big chunks.
3. Steam the carrots, peas and green beans. This ensures that they get soft, and you don't have to cook the soup forever if you don't want to.
4. Put all ingredients into dutch oven or other large cooking pot. When adding beans, pour in all the liquid too! It has a great flavor in the soup. Scoop out 3-4 cups worth of soup, and blend in the food processor or blender, and add back to soup. You can blend more or less (or all), depending on the consistency you'd like.
5. Add seasonings. My staples are pepper, montreal chicken seasoning, garlic powder, and onion powder. I also use a bit of whatever else is in my cabinets, like a pinch of herbs de provence, poultry seasoning, dehydrated vegetable crumbles, etc.. I was trying to make it not have too much sodium, so I didn't add any extra salt besides what was already in the stock, but you can add more if you wish.
Just taste and add what you think it needs. Two bay leaves probably would have been good, but I was out of them.
5. Cook until the celery is soft, or longer for added flavor. Cook as long as you want.
ALTERATIONS: The recipe is very flexible. It's good alone, and also makes a good starter recipe. You may add more or less of whatever you'd like. If you want a great tasting soup, but don't really care abut the fat, add another can of beans, another can of stewed tomatoes, or add some chopped potato.
If you like it thicker and starchier, add a little bit of dehydrated mashed potato mix, or dehydrated black beans. If you like it creamy, add some plain soy creamer to it, and blend the whole thing.
If you really don't care about fat and want it to be more like tortilla soup, add more beans, more tomatoes, some bell pepper, some green chilis, black olives, maybe a jalapeno or some el pato sauce, and soy cheese, with crumbled tortilla chips on top of each bowl. MMMMM.