Millecosedde

Or Thick Bean and Vegetable Soup to you! Now, I could never be a vegan, as I like my dairy too much, but if forced, I could live on this soup for a while (and would probably be much healthier for it). It is an Italian soup, and roughly translated, this apparently means 'thousands of cooks', as, like Minestrone, it has lots of variations. This version, from Italian veggie guru Ursula Ferrigno, is essentially a mix of cooked chickpeas, green lentils, borlotti and cannellini beans, simmered with a lot of fresh, skinned tomato, stock, onion, celery and carrot. Half the soup is blended, and returned to the pot with lots of steamed Savoy cabbage and masses of chopped parsley. It is very healthy and filling, although I wouldn't recommend standing downwind of me after a couple of hours........Some recipes recommend adding pasta but I preferred it with bread instead. A little fresh rosemary is a nice addition too.

Beetroot and Carrot Soup

Oh, how I love this soup, and I make it whenever I can get really good examples of the main ingredients. It feels like it is doing me good with every mouthful. It comes from Gennaro Contaldo's book, "Italian Year", a wonderful evocation of seasonal Italian cooking from his home region around the Amalfi Coast - an area we know and love. Gennaro says this needs to be made with the big earthy Autumnal root veg that arrived in my veg box this week, so I just had to make it. It isn't difficult - equal quantities (about a pound each) of carrot and beetroot (raw, of course, not pickled in a jar!) sweated in olive oil with a large onion, several cloves of garlic, a couple of sticks of celery, sliced and some fresh thyme. Cover with veg or chicken stock, simmer, and blitz with a hand blender. I like to keep a little of the raw beetroot and carrot to one side, which I grate in after blending, for a bit of textural variation, but this is entirely optional. Either way, a wonderful thick, sustaining and healing soup - great for vegans too, if you use the veg stock. Fab colour too!