Creamy Vegetable soup (hold the cream)

This week has been pretty trying; the kids got some sort of a stomach bug and they have been on the ever so wonderful (BRAT) diet for the past week.  For those of you who may be unfamiliar with it it's a variation of bananas applesauce rice and toast. Anyhow, the kids tummy's were still a bit sensitive so I wanted to make them a really healthful yet tasty meal that would be easy on their belly's.  This is how I came up with this fab soup and it was something that the entire family enjoyed, including the baby!  I hope you all enjoy delish dish! Happy Eating!!

Ingredients:

2- 32 ounce box of chicken stock (or if your a vegetarian you can certainly substitute this will vegetable broth)

4 cups of water

drizzle of olive oil

10 garlic cloves

baby carrots chopped

2 onions chopped

1 zucchini chopped

1 yellow squash chopped

4 stalks of celery chopped

2 cups of raw broccoli

1 yellow bell pepper chopped

1 table spoon dried parsley

1 table spoon dried basil

salt and pepper to taste

4 cups of brown rice

Heat the pot that you will be making the entire soup in on medium.  Drizzle your olive oil on the bottom of the pot. Then add onion, garlic, carrots, zucchini, squash, yellow bell pepper, celery and let them caramelize (this should take about 5-8 minutes.)  After the vegetables have caramelized add your chicken stock.  Next add broccoli  dried parsley and dried basil and salt and pepper.  Cover pot and turn stove on high for about 20 minutes and let all the vegetable get happy together (this process makes vegetable tender) .  Lastly add the brown rice about 40 minutes before serving

(Tip) You may need to add more water to soup while the rice is cooking, keep an eye on it to make sure the rice does not absorb all the liquid, I had to add about 4 cups of water during this process.