Do you ever make a recipe that’s so simple and yet so good you wonder why everyone doesn’t make it all the time? That’s how I felt after making the Lima Bean, Sun-Dried Tomato & Pesto Soup recipe from The Ultimate Soup Bible (page 210). By the way, if you follow that link you’ll see that the book is selling for $250, which is bonkers because we got ours at Barnes & Noble for a couple bucks. Not sure why it’s so pricey.
Anyway, the recipe is crazy simple. You basically boil 56 ounces of strained lima beans, which are apparently also known as butter beans (had to look that one up on my phone because I was having zero luck finding lima beans at the grocery store). Once those are boiled you add in sun-dried tomato paste and pesto, boil, blend some up and then combine. There you go.
I also couldn’t find 28oz cans, so I went with four 15.5 ouncers. I also couldn’t find actual sun-dried tomato paste, so I got a small jar of them in oil and blended them up in the Magic Bullet. I guess that’s the same as tomato paste, right? We also didn’t have any pesto lying around from back when we had basil, so I bought a jar.
Man, oh man, this was great stuff. All those flavors combined so well and tasted so good together. It wasn’t like tasting something brand new, but more like tasting a brand new combo that makes all kinds of sense and is therefore awesome. My wife was actually pretty bummed out when I told her we were having a lima bean-based soup because she hates them. But, I convinced her to give it a shot and she really, really liked the soup. I will definitely be adding this one to regular rotation and perusing this book for more recipes to see if it’s worth that crazy-high price tag some people are selling it for!
Pop Poppa 
I’m happy to have discovered your blog. I love lima beans and this soup sounds so good with the sun dried tomatoes and pesto.
It really is fantastic stuff. Glad you liked the post!