Hearty Buckwheat and Veggie Soup
Serves: 4
Time: 35 minutes
It is definitely soup season, it’s cold and I’m craving warm comforting food. Tonight’s soup makes you feel all warm and content without feeling like you’ve overindulged, like some of your more decadent soups can have you feel. There are endless variations for soups from a crystal clear consume to a decadently rich blue cheese and broccoli, in my earlier restaurant days we used to invent a new soup every day so I have tried a great many weird and wonderful creations but my favourites are still the classics. Today is a very simple and very quick soup that’s lovely and clean to eat with good wholesome ingredients, so if you want to add that tasty sourdough for a touch of indulgence then why not.
Leftovers
This soup will produce enough for two huge bowls of soup or 4 average, so when feeding two you’ll get a modest helping for leftovers.
What you'll need
1 brown onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon of chopped thyme
4 sticks of celery
3 carrots
1 leek
1 swede
2 litres of veggie stock
1/3 cup of buckwheat
1 teaspoon of chopped flat leaf parsley
OPTIONAL
1 loaf of sourdough
25g butter
From the Pantry
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Salt and Pepper
Switch it Up
If you can't find swede or would prefer something else, potato or sweet potato or even pumpkin and parsnips would also work great.
Prep and Cook
Prep Veg
Peel and finely dice onion and garlic.
Finely chop thyme, removing any large woody pieces.
Peel the carrot and cut into a small dice roughly the size of your little fingernail.
Wash and cut celery and leek in a similar size.
Peel swede and cut to a similar size.
Cook
Heat oil in a large pot or casserole dish with a tight fitting lid, saute onions, garlic and thyme until soft.
Add the carrot, leek and celery and saute till soft.
Add the veggie stock and bring up to the boil, add the swede and buckwheat and season well. Turn down to a gentle simmer. Cover with a lid and cook for 20 minutes.
Remove the lid and check the veg you want them to be soft to the fork, a little texture still but not soft enough that they will become mushy.
Check the seasoning and finish with fresh chopped parsley.
Serve with crusty sourdough and butter.
Enjoy!
Lunch Tomorrow
Soup makes a fabulous lunch the next day all you need is to heat and eat, perfect for leftovers in a food thermos. If your feeling like soup is too light I often make this one using shredded chicken from a cooked chook from the supermarket.