Sunday, 6 April 2014

Food | Meat Free Monday #2 {Jamie Oliver's Chunky Squash and Chickpea Soup}

Hands up, who doesn't love Jamie Oliver?

His flavour combinations are simply the best. Fresh, interesting and delicious!

His Instagram provides a lot of daily inspiration and every Monday he posts a Meat Free Monday Recipe. This week I decided to re-create it. Seeing as now we have a (mostly) fully functioning kitchen and all.

So here's his Chunky Squash and Chickpea Soup.

I have a little disclaimer to make before we get started. I was in a bit of a rush when I was making this so couldn't be bothered to do the toasted seeds bit of his recipe - I'm sure if you could though it would be worth the effort.


First up, preheat your oven and roast your Butternut Squash with the Cumin and Chilli.



Whilst that's working it's magic in the oven you need to prep your onion, celery, garlic and parsley stalks.


I also chopped up my lemon zest, mint and parsley leaves and mixed with the reserved red onion for the little fresh and tasty flourish you add at the end.


When your squash is done, you need to heat a splash of olive oil in a large saucepan and add your veggies.


Let them soften for a few minutes before adding your roasted squash, and then let it all sweat for a few minutes before adding your stock.



The recipe says to bring to the boil and let simmer for 15 minutes but I was hungry so I just bought it to the boil and added the chickpea's!


Did I mention patience is not my forte? Especially when I'm hungry!

Anyway I let that all simmer for a bit, before transferring half my soup to the blender for a whizz. Jamie uses a hand-held but I have no idea where mine is so made do.

I ladled it into a big bowl and added my little herby pop of goodness.



Yum!! This soup is amazing - rich and warming and yet fresh and zingy all at the same time.

A little side-note on this recipe, or any recipe really.

A lot of times I make ingredient "substitutes" e.g. I don't go out and buy every last ingredient because when it comes to Jamie's recipes that can get pretty expensive. If I have something with a similar flavour in the cupboard I will use that.

For example, this recipe calls for cumin seeds and a dried red chilli to roast the squash. I didn't have either, so I used ground cumin and chilli flakes instead. And I also didn't have the harissa paste or the seeds to hand so I decided to leave them out entirely - the soup was still delicious.

When it comes to recipes I love the inspiration, but tweaking and making them your own is half the fun too.

Happy Monday everyone! x









No comments:

Post a Comment