Preparation Time: Short if you use pre-cut and frozen vegetables, longer if you cut up and use fresh vegetables.
'Cook Time: roughly 20 minutes
Description[]
This particular soup is I feel good all the year round. It is quick and easy to make, uses healthy ingredients, and will satisfy as a main dish. This way you get the taste and the bealth benefits of extra virgin olive oil and guarantee the oil won't be cooked higher than the boiling point of water. Overheating oil can damage its health properties as well as the flavour. Olive oil and especially extra virgin olive oil seem unstable at high temperature. [1] See Frying in hot vegetable oil for more.
Ingredients[]
This is how I made it though other Italien or Mediterranean vegetables can be substituted.
- Frozen aubergine (eggplant)
- Frozen courgette (zucchini)
- Frozen tomatoes
- Frozen sweetcorn
- Green lentils, I used fresh but frozen also work as do other Mediterraneal style pulses.
- Italian seasoning, (bought dried) and some chili powder
- A little wholemeal pasta.
- A little extra virgin olive oil
- A little grated cheese (Vegans can leave the cheese out.)
Directions[]
- I put boiling water into large pot, stired together the frozen aubergine, courgette, tomatoes, at high heat till they unfroze. I added the sweetcorn later as it's smaller and unfreezes faster.
- I added the lentils which had been kept for a day with enough water to keep them wet but were left uncovered so the seeds could get oxygen. They were beginning to sprout and needed shorter cooking. Unsprouted pulses are best pre-cooked as they take longer to cook than the other ingredients.
I added pasta, cheese, soup powder instead of salt on its own, Italian seasoning, chili and extra virgin olive oil, then brought everything back to a boil.
- I simmered covered till the pasta and vegetables were cooked, that way it needs less stirring and I don't need to stand in the kitchen but it's a soup more than a stew.