This healthy summer vegetable soup from Provence is packed with more nutritional good stuff than you can shake a stick (of celery) at. You can make it into a more hefty meal-in-a-bowl for dinner by adding some soup pasta or orzo.
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp fruity green olive oil
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, crushed
- 4 celery sticks, finely chopped
- 1 large leek, trimmed, washed and chopped
- 5 oz (150 g) baby turnips, peeled and diced
- 10 oz (300 g) baby carrots, diced
- 10 oz (300 g) new potatoes, diced
- 1¾ pints/4¼ cups (1 litre) hot vegetable stock
- 4 tomatoes, roughly chopped
- 14 oz/2 cups (400 g) canned haricot (navy) beans, rinsed and drained
- 2 courgettes (zucchini), diced
- 4 oz (100 g) fine green beans, trimmed and diced
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 4 tbsp green pesto, to serve
How to Make It
- Heat the oil in a large saucepan set over a low heat. Add the onion, garlic, celery, leek, turnips and carrots and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes until they start to soften. Add the potatoes and cook for 5 minutes.
- Pour in the hot stock and add the tomatoes and haricot (navy) beans. Simmer gently for 15 minutes before adding the courgettes (zucchini) and green beans. Cook for another 5 minutes until all the vegetables are tender. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Ladle into four shallow soup bowls and swirl a big dollop of pesto into each serving.
