What better way to enjoy soup than to add your favourite pizza ingredients to it? Make it in the crockpot or just simmer on the stovetop. The leftovers are great for lunches too.

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves minced garlic

2 cups sliced mushrooms

1 tsp dried oregano

1/4 tsp each salt and pepper

2 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1 cup diced ham, smoked turkey, or hard pepperoni

1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes

1/4 cup tomato paste

1 small green pepper, diced

In large skillet, heat oil over med-high heat, saute onion, garlic, mushrooms, oregano, salt and pepper until onions are soft. Add half the broth and bring to boil. Pour into slow cooker with remaining broth, ham, tomatoes and tomate paste. Stir to combine.

Cover and cook on low for 4 hours. Stir in green pepper and cook on high until tender, about 20 minutes. Taste before serving and add more oregano to taste if needed.

If you don’t want to use the crockpot, just simmer on low on the stovetop for about an hour.

I served this with cheese-bread sticks as it seemed to go with the pizza theme. Cole liked helping to prepare and serve the soup (and even acted as a hand model in my photo, as you can see), but didn’t seem to enjoy the eating of the soup so much. I don’t think he was very hungry because he didn’t do much justice to his cheese-bread either, and usually he likes that a lot. Bennett wasn’t overly interested either. I guess it was just an ‘off’ day. I ate all mine and enjoyed dipping my bread in it. I packed some in their lunches the following day and it was all gone when they came home so I’m assuming they liked it. I had some the next day for lunch as well and found that the flavour had improved overnight. It reminded me a lot of minstrone soup, but without beans and pasta. I think I prefer minstrone actually, but this soup certainly wasn’t bad.