Soup’s On!
| December 8, 2009 | Posted by admin under Cooking, Healthy Eating, Produce |
We had a cold weekend here in Tallahassee (which, to me, is anything under 60 degrees – I think a lot of Florida natives can relate). So when I was coming up with my shopping list for the week, I thought a soup would make a great dinner… And I was totally right! I found this vegetarian soup recipe online, made it for dinner Sunday night and loved it. What’s so great about it, you ask?
1) It uses fresh ingredients that are in season right now in Florida (snap beans, tomatoes, zucchini). It also uses basil, one of my absolute favorite herbs to cook with.
2) It makes you feel fancy when you serve it because it has a French name.
3) It tastes really freakin’ good.
Pistou Soup
means “Pesto Soup” in French
Yield: Approx 6 Servings
Ingredients
- 6 cups vegetable broth (or chicken if you want)
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup fresh Florida snap beans – rinsed, trimmed and snapped into bite-size pieces
- 2 Florida zucchini, cut into small cubes
- 2 carrots, cut into bite size pieces
- 2 potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces
- 1/2 bunch basil, leaves picked from stems
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- 4-5 Florida tomatoes, chopped, separated
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 can no-salt added kidney beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 can no-salt added white beans, drained and rinsed
- 8 ounces pasta of choice (I used macaroni)
- 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
- 1/4 cup shredded Gruyere cheese (optional)
Preparation
- Bring the vegetable broth and water to a boil in a large pot. Stir in the snap beans, carrots and potatoes. Return to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer 25-30 minutes. Add zucchini after first 20 minutes of simmering.
- Meanwhile, prepare the pistou by processing the basil leaves, garlic, 2 of the tomatoes, olive oil and salt together in a food processor until finely chopped; set aside.
- Stir the kidney beans, white beans, remaining 2-3 tomatoes and pasta into the soup and return to a simmer. Cook until the pasta is tender, about 10 minutes. Remove the soup from the heat and stir in the pistou. Sprinkle with Gruyere cheese and Parmesan cheese before serving if desired.
Don’t let the long ingredient list scare you; this soup is extremely simple to make and practically impossible to screw up. Also keep in mind that fresh produce is a lot cheaper when it’s in season!
While it has warmed up a little bit in Tallahassee, I’m going to be eating on this soup all week long because it’s so darn good! Enjoy 
That looks really good Sarah. I am going to try making it!