Minestrone - hot vegetable soup on a cold day

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  A bunch of fresh vegetables chopped up small along with some spaghetti, cooked in a tomato broth, and topped off with parmesan or the cheese of your choice. Yep, it’s a hot recipe for a cold day. It is vegan, if you leave the cheese off.

Minestra di verdure is vegetable soup in Italian. I got the recipe from a friend at school, but it is the same as many soups I’ve eaten in Italy. This version is pure veg, but people use meat stock, and sometimes include beans or bacon. On the basis that this is a pot luck soup, you include any vegetables you have to hand. My most recent version included courgettes, instead of potatoes.

Don’t bother with this soup unless you like chopping veg.

Ingredients

1 large onion

2 celery stalks

2 garlic cloves

2 carrots

2 potatoes

1 bay leaf

pinch of thyme

handful of fresh parsley

1 can chopped tomatoes

100g dry spaghetti (a small bunch)

salt and pepper and 2tbsp olive oil

Method

• Chop all the vegetables and garlic into small pieces, I like them to be about 1cm cubes
• Fry gently a couple of spoonfuls of oil  using a heavy bottomed pan for a couple of minutes stirring all the time
• Add enough water to cover all the vegetables and add thyme parsley and bay leaf, bring to a simmer and cook for five minutes
• Add the chopped tomatoes and season with salt and pepper
• Bring back to the boil and simmer for a few more minutes
• Break the spaghetti into the cooking soup – I like short lengths, about 5cm and cook for about 11 minutes, or until the spaghetti is cooked
• Serve with grated parmesan and a piece of buttered toast.

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stock from double chicken roast + chicken

At the end of a wet Sunday we shared supper with Alex and Derek. We walked our food round to theirs, and had two roast chickens. Alex had made roasties to the usual high quality, I had thrown some cooked new potatoes around in pounded garlic with paprika, lemon and olive oil and let them cook for 15m on the shelf above my chicken. I had carefully removed the drumsticks and set them aside with another set of legs, remaining from the chicken we'd bought to eat just the breast meat. After all, the breast meat being sold on its own cost the same price as a whole chicken. So I roasted a chicken without its drumsticks, adding the chicken wings from the other bird. It was a mismatched puzzle of a roast chicken... because Derek really likes chicken wings, and that way there were six to choose from (remember, they were also roasting a chicken. Fascinating.

The upshot, after the meal was eaten and we waddled home, was that I ended up with three chicken carcasses. There were a couple of legs missing, and a couple of drumsticks (being made into stew soon), but it was still a whole heap of bones. So into the large pot went the bones with a bayleaf, a small bunch of parsley, an onion studded with four whole cloves, a leek, several cloves of garlic, peppercorns, a carrot and some mixed herbs. On top of that went about three litres of water, and then it was all boiled together for around an hour. The result? Stock, lovely gelatinous stock.

Soup follows

rouille for soup

It's a grey day, welcome rain with a nippy wind. I'm cooking a few puy lentils, and looking forward to a light soup with spring greens, and other veg. I will add a bit of tang with a tomato, and some fresh herbs. It will be a light stock, with powdered bouillon, the veg will all be finely cut, and the lentils will give a slightly earthy note. I will toast some bread and rub it with garlic, and may add a bit of rouille.

Sauce Rouille: small amount

• 1 Tsp hot stock
• 1 clove peeled garlic
• ½ small red chilli pepper
• pinch salt
• 2 tbsp roughly shredded white bread (without crust)
• 4 tbsp olive oil

If you have a stick blender, use the narrow beaker, adding the hot stock, garlic and hot pepper, salt and bread. Blend until very smooth. Slowly add olive oil with the blender running slowly, checking to see when the oil disappears, then stop.

I’ll be using the trusy pestle and mortar

I'd better go to get those greens. Pix will follow.