Spring Vegetable Broth

This wonderful broth envelopes you with warmth like a big hug. It is a perfect meal in itself thanks to the addition of the chickpeas I threw in. I used young organic leeks (garlic and celery) that I bought from the Saturday market where our local farm (Ferme du Vallon) have a stall and soaked and cooked organic locally grown chickpeas that I bought in bulk from our local healthfood shop Natura Ventoux. It feels good to know the provenance of the food we eat! If you want to make this gluten free, Barilla now make gluten free pasta, readily available in most good supermarkets. Alternatively, any health food store will have some. To veganize the recipe you can use coconut oil instead of butter (or fry the vegetables in a little vegetable broth) and replace the parmesan with a good vegan alternative. This is a child friendly recipe, although if you have a fussy eater who picks out the spring greens, why not blend some broth for them?

This recipe was inspired by Olive Magazine: https://www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/healthy/spring-veg-and-lemon-broth/

On to the recipe now:

Serves: 4 Preparation time: 5 minutes Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

2 leeks, sliced finely 2 celery stalks, tough threads removed and sliced finely 1 garlic clove, minced 100g of small pasta shapes 1 cup of cooked chickpeas 1.3 litres of vegetable broth 1 tbsp of olive oil 1 tbsp of butter or coconut oil Juice and zest of 1 lemon Head of spring greens or 1/2 head of pointed white cabbage, shredded A bunch of fresh basil chopped Parmesan (or vegan alternative), to taste

1. Cook the celery for 5 minutes in the olive oil and butter in a large pan until soft. Add the leeks and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the garlic and leave to cook for a minute or two. 2. Add the vegetable broth and bring to the boil. Throw in the pasta and boil for 4 minutes. 3. Add the shredded spring greens/cabbage and chickpeas and cook on a medium heat for another 4 minutes or so until the pasta and greens are cooked. 4. Stir in the basil. Add the lemon juice and zest and pour the soup into bowls. Sprinkle with parmesan to taste.

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