Rustic Vegetable Minestrone

Our dear friends gave me a beautiful cookbook from their last cruise, it is a celebration of courses through the journies of their fleet: Culinary Courses Journeys. Although most of the recipes are quite fancy, the book is amazing inspiration and a week doesn’t go by that I don’t check it for reference!

It was such an occasion that I was leafing through the book that I found a gorgeous representation of a Minestrone Soup and I knew I had to make it for dinner. And then I realized that I did not have a Minestrone on the blog. Gads!

The soup is packed with fresh vegetables in a light tomato and basil scented broth. The protein is navy bean to keep it healthy. You could add a parmesan rind or two to the broth while cooking.

The tuile melts into the soup for a beautiful flavour and textural addition.

A KitchenInspirations Original Recipe

Makes about 1.5 L (6.25 cups) soup.

Please click here to print this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp EVOO
• 125 g (~1 cup) sweet onion, diced
• 10 g (2 – 3 cloves) garlic, finely minced
• 150 g (~1 cup) zucchini, diced
• 115 g (~1 cup) celery, diced
• 120 g (~1 cup) red pepper, diced
• 75 g (~1 cup) king mushrooms, diced
• 140 mL (4 oz) puréed tomatoes, juice or sauce
• 15 mL (1 tbsp) tomato paste
• 350 mL (1 2/3 cups) chicken stock
• 2 stems of basil
• 4 stems of lemon thyme
• 100 g (1/2 cup) dried beans
• 35 g (~1 cup) baby spinach
• 5-8 fresh basil leaves, roughly torn

Directions:

1. Cook the dried beans according to directions.
2. Heat Olive Oil in a large pot and sauté onions until translucent, you may need to add a little stock or water. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant.
3. Add all of the vegetables and cook for about 10-15 minutes.
4. Combine the puréed tomatoes, tomato paste, and chicken stock. Pour over the vegetables and add the basil and thyme stems and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove stems.
5. Add the cooked beans and baby spinach, stir and heat through.
6. Serve garnished with a Parmesan tuile (recipe below) and roughly torn basil leaves.

Basil Cheese Tuile

Makes 1 tuile

Ingredients:

• 7 g (1/4 oz) hard fatty cheese (like Parmesan or Cheddar), finely grated
• 1 large basil leaf, chiffonade
• pinch of granulated garlic

Directions:

1. Pre-heat the oven on high broil.
2. Mix cheese, basil and granulated garlic well.
3. On a parchment lined baking sheet, shape the tuile as desired (I made a tear drop).
4. Broil until evenly browned (mine took about 4 minutes but it depends on how thick you make your tuile); to prevent burning, you may need to cover part of it with bits of parchment as it bakes.

Notes:

• I like a little crunch left in my vegetables, so I generally under cook rather than over cook.
• If you make this in advance, keep the beans separately so they don’t turn to mush.
• I used Ivanhoe Horseradish Cheddar because I thought it would be a nice zing to the soup.
• Make as many tuile as you need, just multiply the ingredients by the servings required.