Tuesday Night Vego – Home Grown Minestrone

My friend Laura is vegetarian, so when we catch up this year we have been doing so on Tuesdays to coincide with the nights that I’d be cooking vegetarian anyway.

Yesterday I harvested a huge basket full of produce from the garden, so wanted a recipe where I could use a wide variety of veggies in the one meal. Minestrone fit the bill, and it was perfect for a winter’s day.  I took it as a special challenge to cram as many different types of vegetables in as possible- I don’t think I did too badly.

Ingredients

• Few tablespoons Olive oil
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 6 Dutch carrots, chopped
• 1 large onion, roughly diced
• 1 can cannellini beans
• 1 large potato, diced
• 1/2 swede, diced
• 6 wombok leaves
• 100g daikon
• 1/2 choko, diced
• 100g kale, trimmed
• 1 litre vegetable stock
• 4 ripe tomatoes, diced plus 1 400g can.
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons small pasta shapes
• Salt and pepper (to taste)
• Grated parmesan cheese to serve

Fry the onion, celery and carrots in the olive oil until softened slightly. Add potato and swede, then fry for another minute, stirring. Add tomatoes, wombok, choko ,stock and tomato paste. Stir to combine.

In a separate saucepan, bring water to the boil and briefly parboil the daikon to remove the bitterness. Drain the daikon then add it to the soup. Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer.

Add the kale and adjust seasonings. Add the small pasta shapes and cook until pasta is al dente.

Serve topped with grated Parmesan and accompanied with bread. I used my home-made linseed and chia loaf.

Optionally, you could also add ham to the soup if you didn’t want a vegetarian soup.