MINESTRONE SOUP
Arrived back in Dublin on Monday and am now acclimatising to the cold weather and getting over my jet lag!!
I decided I needed some warming comfort food so made a big pot of Minestrone Soup which went down well with everyone in the house for a tasty lunch.
Made it slightly differently to my last post, which is the beauty of these types of soups – you can change it around depending on what you have in the house.
This time I used, 2 red onions, 2 carrots, 2 celery sticks, 1 fennel bulb and 4 cloves of garlic, all finely diced and sauted in some olive oil until they were nice and soft. I put the lid on and let them steam at the same time, as you need less oil this way.
Once they were softened, I added a glug of red wine and once it was boiling added 2 tins of chopped tomatoes with 2 courgettes halved lengthways and sliced with one tin of butter beans (drained and rinsed), 1/2 cup cooked quinoa and 1 litre of vegetable stock. Add some freshly ground black pepper and let this all simmer away for approx 1/2 hour then add 1/2 savoy cabbage very finely shredded, cooking another 10 minutes.
Serve with some grated Parmesan and lots of basil sprinkled over the top.
NOTE: Parmesan cheese is not vegetarian !!!! We only found this out recently, much to my daughters dismay! Parmesan is made with rennet, the lining of a calfs stomach. So if you are following a strictly vegetarian way of eating, no more Parmesan for you!!!
