Ingredients:

  • 200 grams dried (mixed) beans
  • cabbage leaves
  • 2 potatoes
  • 100 grams peas
  • 200 grams fresh string beans
  • 2 eggplant
  • 2 zucchini
  • 2 carrots
  • a stalk of celery
  • a slice of kale
  • olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • 250 grams pasta or rice
  • seasonal herbs

Method:

Soak the beans overnight. Put in a pot of cold water and cook for an hour over moderate heat. This is the base of your soup. Add to this the vegetables, which you have cut up into cubes already. Also add olive oil, salt and pepper.
Cook for 45 minutes, add extra water if needed. You don’t want your minestrone to be too thick, you want it to be a soup. Add the pasta or rice and let cook whilst preparing the pesto.

Pesto

Ingredients:

  • 6 cloves of garlic
  • 2 handfuls of basil leaves
  • salt
  • 6 handfuls of cheezly/substitute parmesan if desired. I make my pesto without the cheese and its delicious
  • 3 or 4 spoons of olive oil

In a mortar combine the garlic, the basil and a little salt. Whilst pounding with a mortar add the nondairy parmesan and when it is all beaten into a paste, add some olive oil and mix it into a thick cream. Loosen further with some broth from the soup, and then just before serving stir the loosened pesto right thru the soup.

Amber | www.intothesoul.com