Vegetarian Minestrone Style Soup

I made a rather exciting discovery in the health food shop recently which has inspired me to create this soup.  The Dr Schar brand of gluten free pasta now have a conchigliette (tiny shells) with a lovely picture on the front of a noodley soup.  My girls thought that the picture was what was in the box and so when I explained it was just pasta we all decided to create something that would look, and hopefully taste, as good.

My finished soup wasn't much like the picture at all to be truthful as it was obviously much more tomato based.  The good news is that the girls loved it and I think it looked pretty good as well.  My late mother in law was the queen of Minestrone soup so I'm not sure what she would make of my vegetarian version, but my husband gave it a 9/10, which for him is about as good as it gets.

What you will need:

• 150 grams of small gluten free pasta shells (or whatever you can find that is similar)
• olive oil
• 1 medium onion
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• 2 - 3 shallots (green onions), finely sliced
• 1 large or 2 medium carrots
• 1 stick of celery
• 2 zucchinis (I used some yellow squash as well)
• a handful of fresh oregano
• 2 tins chopped tomatoes 
• 2 tins water
• 1 tsp beef stock
• 1 tin of red kidney beans, or 4 bean mix
• fresh basil to serve
• freshly ground black pepper

What you need to do:

1.  Finely chop the onion.

 2. Heat up some olive oil in a stockpot or large saucepan and fry the onion until soft and slightly golden.  While the onion is cooking, chop the carrots, celery and shallots.






3.  Add crushed garlic and stir for about a minute.  Add shallot, carrot and celery and fry for about 4 minutes.

4. Add the two tins of tomatoes, two tins of water, beef stock powder and mix well.  Bring to a boil.

5. Simmer gently for about 10 minutes.  Meanwhile chop the zucchinis and oregano.

6. Add the zucchini, oregano and kidney beans to the soup and continue to simmer.

7.  Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil and add the pasta.  Cook for about 2 minutes less than the recommended cooking time.

8. When the pasta is ready, drain and add to the soup.

 

9.  Continue cooking the soup until the pasta is just done, probably a few more minutes.

10.  Serve with chopped basil and baby oregano leaves sprinkled on top as well as freshly ground black pepper and a drizzle of good quality olive oil.