Moon Food: Vegetable Soup
Ingredients:
1 28 oz can of crushed or diced tomatoes- I like San Marzano crushed or peeled tomatoes
3 carrots
3 celery stalks
1 bay leaf
1 onion
2 crushed garlic cloves ( use crusher or mortal and pestle)
2 cans of chickpeas or 2 cups pre-cooked or use cannelloni beans
1 tsp oregano and 1 tsp thyme ( dried)
2 tbsp olive oil
4 cups of water
1 tsp nutritional yeast
1 1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 cup red wine ( optional)
1 cup chopped spinach or kale
Note: Fee free to add some pasta like wheels or alphabets if you want a nostalgia or a little left over rice. Toast sour dough, smother it in olive oil and slurp up the bottom bowl of your soup. Also, the wine gives an extra depth but it is not essential to the flavor. The more dry the better.
Directions:
1.) Chop in small pieces: carrot, celery, onion. Crush garlic. Heat large soup pot on medium for 2 mins. Add 2 tbsp of olive oil. Heat oil for 30 seconds and then add onion and garlic. Cook for 1 min. Then add celery and carrot. Cook and sweat the veggies for 5 mins until they start to get a little tender. Notice the celery getting a softer color-this is the sign that they are ready for herbs. Add oregano and thyme stir and cook for 1 min.
2.) Add whole can of tomatoes ( if they are whole plum Marzano tomatoes use a wooden spoon to smash them into smaller pieces and stir well into the mix of veggies, onion, garlic and herbs. Cook for 5 mins. Then add 4 cups of water, salt, pepper, bay leaf. Add two cans of drained and rinsed chickpeas or 2 cups of pre-cooked chickpeas. Stir all the ingredients well together into the soup and raise the heat a little bit. You want to bring the soup to a boil. Add 1/4 cup red wine if you choose to and let it low boil for 5 mins. Then lower the heat and simmer cook for 30 mins. At the end of cooking stir in the nutritional yeast. Let cool for 10 mins and then stir in fresh greens. Once cool eat immediately with fresh bread, crackers or as is.