Tomato-White Bean Soup + KitchenAid Hand Blender Giveaway!

I hope you all had a great New Year's Eve/Day! We hosted a party at our house on New Year's Eve, then spent a relaxing day with friends yesterday (let's just say we watched three movies and played lots of card games). It was a glorious holiday!

After two days of sitting around, drinking, and eating unhealthy food, though, I am ready to eat some vegetables today...or, anything remotely healthy for that matter. So why don't we kick 2013 off with a healthy recipe (and a giveaway)?

Tomato-White Bean Soup with Arugula Pesto

Yields: 4 servings

Adapted from Self.com

-2 tablespoons olive oil
-1 yellow onion, chopped
-1 tablespoon minced garlic
-2 cups canned cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
-1 can (14 oz). diced tomatoes
-1 tablespoon dried parsley
-1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
-2 Turkish bay leaves
-1 1/2-2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth (amount depends on how thick you like your soup; I used about 1 1/2 cups)
-Pinch of cayenne pepper
-Salt and black pepper, to taste
-Four generous dollops of arugula pesto, for garnish

Directions:
1.) In a large pot, heat oil over medium heat. Cook onion, stirring occasionally, until golden, 3 to 5 minutes. Add garlic; cook for an additional 1-2 minutes (just watch the garlic carefully so it doesn't burn).
2.) Add beans, tomatoes, parsley, thyme, bay leaves and vegetable broth. Season with cayenne, salt and black pepper. Bring soup to a boil; reduce heat, cover, and simmer, stirring occasionally, about 10-15 minutes.
3.) Remove bay leaves from soup; discard. With a hand blender, puree soup to your liking (I pureed mine completely). Divide soup among four bowls, and dollop each with pesto (I stirred the pesto in so it swirled throughout the soup).

For being really easy - and cheap - to prepare, this soup was wonderfully elegant and delicious. The arugula really makes this soup, so I highly recommend not skipping out on using it!

If you don't have a hand blender, you can enter my giveaway. ;) I'm giving away a KitchenAid 3 Speed Hand Blender in Contour Silver (pictured below):

This product blends, purees, whisks, and chops just about anything. I have a hand blender, and I seriously use it all the time for everything from soups to iced coffee drinks. 

To enter to win this 3 speed hand blender, simply comment on this post telling me what you're looking forward to in 2013. For an extra entry, simply tweet: "I want to #win a @KitchenAidUSA 3 speed hand blender from @MichellePC!" Just post a second comment saying you tweeted. 

I will pick a winner the morning of Monday, January 7th. Good luck!

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