It's been what I consider to be a fairly cold March/April here on the Eastern seaboard. While I was raised on frost warnings in May (western PA), I've gotten used to the milder weather in eastern PA. However, this is the year that sweaters were made for.
So last week between the 60-degree days, we were hit with a 40-degree day or so with some mighty high winds. Okay, I can take it, but not everyone here can. It was that rainy, windy cold that seeps into your bone marrow and practically begs you for soup.
Soup it was. I wanted something minestrone-like without really being minestrone, so I opened the fridge and tossed in what appealed. It came together beautifully, and made a wonderfully rich soup without all the fat involved.
Mock Minestrone
1/4 cup chopped onion
2 carrots, sliced
1 stalk celery, sliced
4 cups vegetable broth
1/2 tsp. vegetable buillion (I used Better than Buillion)
1 can white beans, drained and rinsed
1 tsp. thyme
1 handful veggie crumbles, optional (I used frozen)
2 heaping handfuls spinach
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
In a saucepan, add about a tablespoon of water and heat. Saute onions, celery and carrots in this for about 3 minutes or until water mostly steams off. Add vegetable broth one cup at a time, stirring in buillion to make sure it dissolves. Add beans, thyme, crumbles, salt and pepper. Heat for about 20 minutes, until veggies are softer and the flavors have blended. Turn off heat. Toss in spinach and stir in for a few seconds until it's wilted.
2 comments:
We are just entering Winter so I am looking for tasty soup recipes and this will be a nice change from my usual tomato based minestrone recipe so I must try it.
Jackie, if you want a little more oomph to it, toss in 1/4 cup of ditalini pasta. Gives it just that much more staying power in your stomach. :)
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