Garden Vegetable Soup

What do you do when your garden looks like this?

You make a delicious vegetable soup!  I actually made a couple rounds of this soup in August, which is when this picture was taken.  Unfortunately we had a super early hard freeze this year, around the second week of September, so now my garden looks like this:

We even covered the whole thing with tarps, but alas, my garden was toast.  The worst part was that I lost all of my mounds of basil. :(  We were able to save everything else by picking it and bringing it indoors, so harvest time came early this year.  Such is life when you live in Montana.  However, I'm sure a lot of you still have gardens burgeoning with vegetables, so here's a great way to use up some of those goodies.

Garden Vegetable Soup

•  2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1/2 small red onion, chopped
• 1/2 small yellow onion, chopped
• 2 large cloves garlic, minced
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 2 medium carrots, or 22 baby carrots, chopped
• 1/2 large bell pepper (I used a yellow pepper)
• 1/2 large zucchini, chopped
• 1/2 large yellow summer squash, chopped
• 22 green beans, cut into 1/2 in. pieces
• 1 can diced tomatoes (My tomatoes weren't ripe yet, so I used canned)
• 1 tsp. Italian seasoning
• 8 cups chicken broth
• 2 cans V8 juice
• 1 cup farfalinne pasta or other mini pasta

1. Chop all veggies into the chunk size you prefer for your soup.
2. Heat a dutch oven or soup pot over medium heat and add oil.
3. Once pan is heated add onions, garlic, celery, carrots, and bell pepper.  Saute for about 5 min.
4. Add zucchini, summer squash, green beans, and Italian seasoning.  Saute for another 5-10 min.
5. Add diced tomatoes with their juice.  Scrape up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan.
6. Add the chicken broth, V8 juice, and mini pasta.  
7. Bring to a boil, turn down, and simmer for ~20 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

 

Yummmm!  This soup is so delicious!  I made a crusty loaf of bread in my bread machine to go with it for dinner.  It was the perfect light summertime meal.  And such a great way to use up some of that bountiful harvest from your garden. :)


As you can tell, this is a minestrone type soup.  It would be equally delicious made with some white beans, such as cannellini.  And if you want to take it up another notch, throw a Parmesan cheese rind in before you simmer.  The cheese rind melts completely, but doesn't really make the soup cheesy.  It just adds a whole other flavor level that is simply fantastic!