Healthy Winter Vegetable Soup

Total Time: 55 mins Preparation Time: 15 mins Cook Time: 40 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 8
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 2 carrots, finely chopped
• 2 celery ribs, finely chopped
• 1 cup celery leaves
• 3 cherry tomatoes, halved
• 100 g red lentils (or fagioli) or 100 g borlotti beans (or fagioli) or 100 g butter beans (or fagioli)
• 500 ml vegetable stock (preferably non salty) or 500 ml chicken stock (preferably non salty)
• 400 g chopped tomatoes (tinned or self-prepared)
• 1 tablespoon mixed herbs
• salt (to taste)
• pepper (to taste)

Recipe

• 1 in a pot, place olive oil on a high heat, allow to heat up and then add the crushed garlic and the chopped onions. turn to a medium heat. stir until soft, but not brown. add carrots, celery (not leaves!), lentils/beans and cherry tomatoes and stir in, allowing to absorb all the flavours.
• 2 after about 3-5 minutes stirring, allowing the flavours to blend together and the ingredients to soften slightly, add the vegetable stock.
• 3 i usually crush the stock cube, or sprinkle the stock powder over the vegetables and then add the water, but everybody will probably do this differently.
• 4 stir again and place a lid over the pot. allow to simmer for 10-20 minutes.
• 5 add tinned chop tomatoes. stir, and allow to reduce with the lid removed for 5-10 minutes.
• 6 10 minutes before serving, tear the celery leaves and stir them inches this will give a very pungent smell and will give the soup and exquisite taste.
• 7 drizzle each portion with a tiny bit of extra virgin olive oil and serve with chunky fresh bread or croutons.
• 8 buon appetito!