After a week of Cornish food, I have found myself eating lots of lighter foods this week. Less cream and chocolate and more vegetables and salad. After a quick trip to the allotment, I was presented with some fat leeks,crisp spring onions and a bunch of colourful rainbow chard.
Spring Vegetable Broth
The chard I tend to fry off in olive oil, garlic and a touch of chilli and eat it as a side dish or throw it into a dhal, curry or stew. I always cook the stems for five minutes before adding in the chopped up leaves which only take a minute or two to soften.
The leeks and the spring onions, I thought would be perfect in so many ways. Risottos, roasted in oil, chargrilled, added to a spring vegetable pizza………….But after a rumble through the freezer I came across a nice big pouch of chicken stock, so broth it would have to be. A stock based soup in which I have poached the spring vegetables with addition of a couple of garnishes.
Home made croutons
For this spring vegetable broth, I like to cook out the leeks so that they blend in and begin to break down into the stock before briefly blanching the remaining vegetables for a contrasting crunch and freshness of taste. Another two tasty additions are home-made croutons and generous amount of freshly grated Parmesan. This provides a real umami hit, bringing it to life so much more than simply adding salt.
Spring Vegetable Soup
This simple, thrifty, delicate vegetable laden soup will be added in to several of the monthly blogging challenges for April which are as follows:
EXTRA VEG – Fuss Free Flavours & Utterly Scrummy
FOUR SEASONS FOOD(celebrate vegetables) – Delicieux & Eat Your Veg
NO WASTE FOOD CHALLENGE – Jibber Jabber & Elizabeth’s kitchen diary
SIMPLE & IN SEASON – Utterly Scrummy & Ren Behan
CREDIT CRUNCH MUNCH – Fab Food 4 All & Fuss Free Flavours
SPEEDY SUPPERS – Maison Cupcake & Feeding Boys
Spring Vegetable Broth
Ingredients
- 1 litre Chicken stock home made or shop bought,
- 2 Large leeks washed trimmed and finely sliced washed, trimmed and finely sliced
- 4 Spring onions finely sliced finely sliced
- 1 Bunch asparagus chopped into chunks or 8 asparagus spears cut in half lengthways then chopped into pieces
- 10 stalks Purple sprouting broccoli with the stalks trimmed into small chunks
- A handful of frozen peas
- A chunk of Parmesan for grating
- Salt & Pepper
- 100 g Stale bread to make croutons with
- -Olive oil/chilli oil
Instructions
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For the croutons:)
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Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees.
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Roughly chop up the stale bread into chunks then place in a bowl and toss in olive oil or chilli oil,
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Place the croutons onto a baking tray and bake for 10 mints until they are golden around the edges,
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Set aside until the broth has been made.
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For the broth:)
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Bring the chicken stock to the boil in a large saucepan then add in the finely sliced leeks and simmer the soup on a medium heat for 10 minutes until the leeks are very soft and beginning to break up then check the seasoning,
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Add in all of the other vegetables, bring the soup back to the boil and simmer for a further 2 minutes so that the vegetables retain a little crunch,
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Divide the soup into bowls and grate over a generous amount of Parmesan and lots of crisp croutons,
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Serve with lots of bread, extra Parmesan and more croutons.
Thank you for entering Credit Crunch Munch with such a healthy and tasty soup Laura:-)
Isn’t it strange how our tastes seem to change with the seasons… or maybe not so strange. The need for warming soups may have passed as the days get warmer, and your vegetable broth sounds just right for a spring lunch.
Yes, Sarah so true. Maybe I will slowly move into making more chilled soups over the next few months!
Oh this looks so utterly virtuous. I learned something so similar at Demuths vegetarian school and it’s such a great base for all sorts of weekday meals.
That looks fantastic, I especially like the cheeky croutons and cheese!
So do I Sarah, love the crunch!
this is a lovely, sustaining yet light spring bowl of loveliness. Although I mainly a veg stock girl, I do like to walk on the wild side with chicken stock every now and again. And of course a little shave of Parmesan on soups is never a bad idea.Neither are croutons. Enjoy your spring allotment bounty.
Thanks Kellie, really need some fruit as have run out of home made jam!
What a lovely light dish for this time of year. Thanks for linking up with this month’s No Waste Food Challenge.
My word that just looks like Spring in a bowl – fabulous!! I’m going to try it out next week as i’m sure it’s perfect for my current WW approach to food. Thanks for hooking up with Speedy Suppers this month i’m sure everyone’s going to really enjoy seeing this in the round-up. I have to say
the home made croutons and cheese are making my tummy rumble and it’s at least another hour to lunch….
Thanks Katie, I do love the colours of the spring veg and they taste pretty good too. I hope WW going well for you, it looks like it by the food you have been making! Loved the look of your curry in particular 🙂
Stunning – saw this over on Katie’s round up. Exactly the kind of food I’m craving, too. Less cream and chocolate, more spring veg and broths 🙂
Me too Ren, loving all the spring veg at the moment mainly in soups like this and/or with miso based stock too 🙂
love soups like this Laura – lots of textures and the croutons making it feel not too healthy. bookmarking this!
Glad your allotment is going well!
I’m incredibly envious of your allotment and easy access to the most wonderful seasonal produce! What a tasty looking spring broth!
This is my kind of broth. Delicious veggies and especially the chard which I love and I think is much underrated. And all the lovely parmesan at the end….lovely. Thanks for entering into Four Seasons Food x
Thanks Anneli and also for choosing my soup as the winner this month, very happy with that!
What a lovely way to make the tender Spring vegetables the stars of the show! We have some leeks from a friend’s allotment and I have instructed my husband that we need to get some rainbow chard in the ground as soon as possible – I love it sauteed with garlic and olive oil 🙂
I would say chard is the best veg to grow. Easy and very high yielding with little effort. Plus it tastes so good!
This is utterly my kind of meal, in a veg stock. Light, fresh, full and filling x
Thanks Deena, and yes just as good made with veg stock. I do love stock based soups, have been doing lots with miso recently too.