How One Leftover leads to Another!

~  Menu  ~

Minestrone-ish Soup

Wild Garlic Bread

Glass of Red

This lunch was the first dish in a series of meals I made up  to use up leftovers.  Having grated a piece of Gran Padano down to the rind I decided that I would use the heel of the cheese to make some warming minestrone-ish soup.

Simple Minestrone Soup

1 small red onion – finely diced

about ¼ carrot – finely diced

1 celery stalk – finely diced

a smidgen of garlic – either paste or crushed

½ tbsp olive oil

½ tbsp tomato paste

150g canned chopped tomatoes

hot vegetable stock

100g cannellini beans

a heel of parmesan

a few veg of your choice (savoy cabbage is traditional)

~   Cook the onion, carrot and celery in the oil over medium heat till starting to caramelise.

~   Stir in the garlic and cook a few seconds more.

~   Add the tomato paste and cook a few more seconds more!

~   Stir in the chopped tomatoes and bring to a boil.

~   Now add enough vegetable stock to make a lovely soupy consistency.

~   Turn down the heat, cover and simmer till the vegetables are tender.

~   Remove from the heat and add the parmesan heel.  Cover and leave to steep for 20-30 minutes by which time the cheese should have done its work.  Remove the rind but stir in any cheese that has melted into the soup.

~   Return to a boil, stir in the cannelloni beans and any veg you might using, cover and simmer till the vegetables are to your liking.

I slathered some Ciabatta with Wild Garlic Pesto and toasted it to serve with the soup.  Unfortunately after making the soup I had half a container of white beans left so I made …

White Bean and Wild Garlic Dip

120g cooked or canned cannellini beans

4 or 5 well washed wild garlic leaves

A squeeze of lemon juice

A little olive oil

Sea salt and coarsely ground black pepper

~   Process together the beans and wild garlic and then with the processor running drizzle in the olive oil till a hummus like texture is achieved.  (Yes, as you will see from the photo I well a little too far!)

~   Season to taste with the lemon juice, salt and pepper.

As it happened I couldn't eat all the hummus and so with an accumulation of leftovers I made ...

Wild Garlic and Potato Soup

This was especially cunning of me because not only did I have some onions cooked my favourite way in the fridge I also had a modicum of leftover mashed potato, so this is what I did.

~ Gently heated the onions till warm and melty.
~ Stirred in the leftover mashed potato together with enough vegetable stock (Oxo) to make a soup consistency.
~ Turned down the heat, covered and cooked for about 10 minutes to meld the flavours.
~ Stirred in a handful of wild garlic leaves till wilted.
~ Tipped the whole lot into the food processor together with knob of clotted cream (but double cream, single cream, crème fraîche, milk etc. would work too) and puréed till smooth.
~ I then stirred in the leftover White Bean Hummus which gave a little texture.

That worked!  Sorry no photo, camera battery was flat.  I blame myself!

I ate the lot this time but if I hadn’t I was thinking of trying any leftover soup with bacon and cream as a pasta sauce!