Soup! I know! Technically it’s still summer, but as I write this the rain is drizzling down with no looks of stopping! The temperature has suddenly dropped this last week by about 10 degrees centigrade so soup is definitely on the menu!
This soup uses totally seasonal produce, freshly picked from the allotment. Tomatoes form the base, with onions, then courgettes, runner beans and spinach beet leaves give it all the fresh vibrancy and pack it full of vitamins.
Fresh seasonal soup… all grown on the allotment
We’ve been away as it’s the school holidays and had a lovely relaxing time with not much phone signal and very limited non-existent wifi! We’ll be home soon and no doubt the holiday will quickly become a distant memory! If you follow us on instagram you might have seen a few scenery photos – such beautiful clean countryside and mountains! Right outside our cottage were cows, sheep, and birds we don’t usually see such as Nuthatches, Chaffinches, Jays and Siskins… not forgetting the Red Kite circling overhead! I’m already missing the peace and tranquillity!
Cows enjoying their freedom?
View from the cottage
Let’s get to the recipe for the soup! Let me know if you make it and comment below with your thoughts! Speak soon! 😀
- 2-3 cups tomatoes roughly chopped
- 2 tablespoons tomato puree
- 1 litre cold water
- 1 large courgette halved lengthways then chopped
- 3-4 green beans sliced
- 4 small onions roughly chopped
- 1 tablespoon sweet paprika powder
- 1/2 teaspoon red chili flakes
- Salt to taste
- Pepper to taste
- 1 large handful spinach beet leaves or chard
- Put the tomatoes, their juice and the tomato paste in a large pan and heat until just starting to bubble.
- Pour in the water, stir, cover and allow to cook for ten minutes. Keep just below boiling.
- Add the courgette, green beans and onion, cover and cook for a further ten minutes on a medium heat.
- Sprinkle in the paprika, chili flakes and season with salt and pepper to your liking. Allow to cook for ten more minutes.
- Stir in the spinach (roughly chop if necessary) and allow to just cook through (2-3 minutes). Do a final taste test and adjust seasoning as necessary.
- Enjoy!
- Serve hot with fresh crusty bread.
- Add a spoonful of cooked pasta before serving.
- Have over a grain such a brown rice, or quinoa.
- Allow to cool before refrigerating for up to three days.
- Can be eaten cold.
- Use different spices - Italian herbs, basil, oregano, chili.
- Add a handful of peas with the spinach.
- Use more or less water for a different consistency.
What lovely photos, I bet it was very nice there?Your soup looks gorgeous too, reminds me of a soup I had last year in Bulgaria called Bob Chopra ( I think). Ahh, rain! I love it but I didnt like getting caught in the heavy rain last night, walking back home for 40 minutes?Temperatures will creep back up to the 30s again very soon. Finally got internet after much palaver lol.
Thanks Eva… We love most parts of Wales but Mid Wales keeps beckoning us with its wilderness and wildlife. Ooo I’ll have to look up Bob Chorba?? We got soaked last week too… totally and utterly soaked to the skin!?Woohoo to finally getting internet- I guess you’re relieved to finally be getting everything sorted!
Mid Wales has been added to my ever-increasing places to visit lol. It would’ve been practically cross-country for you, being east of the UK- how long was the drive or train journey?
I got the name of the soup wrong, it’s Bob Chorba☺give it a try though, it’s so simple but delicious. I recently came across a recipe for choc chip hummous?- you may want to give that one a miss though haha. I love them both separately but really not sure they’d make a good combination! Yes, slowly getting there with getting stuff sorted…just waiting for all our stuff to arrive from back home (and new furniture!)- I hope the delivery guys have trolleys as there’s no lift?
Yes… I sussed it was Chorba (it’s similar to the Turkish word for soup and I guessed the same in Bulgarian). Hours and hours by car to Mid Wales ? we stopped overnight on the way there, and on the way back! You should visit it’s amazing. Anyway, tell me more about your new place ?
The term “chorba” is used in Serbian, too, as a type of thick soup. I love the colors and soup recipe, looks yummy! And your vacation spot, as I said on Instagram, is just heaven. The view from the cottage is a wallpaper material. Amazing! 🙂
Ahhh… Maybe I should be looking up the origins of the word ‘chorba’ – it seems well used! Thanks Milica – I hope you’re both well☺ Picture perfect holiday spot indeed – oh to be back there! Seems ages ago already!
I thought you were being polite in not correcting me?
We live in a wine growing region near the Rhine river. There are pretty vineyards around here (we’re not big drinkers though). We’re not that remote either with the train station literally down the road (you often hear freight trains going past at night which may annoy some). The language is coming back to me but hubbie is struggling with it but he tries, bless him?
I’m sure the trains will soon blend into the background and you’ll forget about them until someone mentions it! ? Wine growing region sounds pretty, especially near the Rhine too. Do you have much chance to try your German out? ?
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I actually don’t mind the sound of the trains, it’s more the school children screaming in the playground lol (they went back in early August!) I know they do that in Scotland, that’s weird to me haha.
Our landlady says she swims in a sectioned-off part of the Rhine: sounds pretty but not so sure about that?
I’m using my German pretty much daily or trying to. We’ve had workmen come in most days who don’t speak English and of course when I go out, etc. Have a good day?
I think we’re just behind ? Lots of places go back in August… but they break up earlier while it’s sunny! Summer appears to have finished here and we’ve returned home to very thick green grass (hooray!) Ooo… go try the swimming! ?? I recall swimming in a reservoir in Germany (many years ago)! Maybe you should only speak to hubby in German?he’d have to pick it quicker then!? Enjoy the rest of the weekend. x
Haha, hubbie keeps saying to do that but I think we’re just lazy! We should speak more German to each other. So, Germany and Scotland are normally hot countries then??☺ I know countries in the Med break up in June and go back in September…don’t blame them! Whereabouts in Germany were you? I remember swimming in an outdoor pool somewhere in Bavaria in 2000 lol. Church bells have been ringing for ages now, I’m guessing there’s a wedding on ☺ Have a nice weekend x
Lol… I’m sure they’re hotter in June than September ? So, you just brought up loads of memories as I searched for the reservoir – I knew it was near Freiburg in the Black Forest but now I’ve remembered it was called Lake Schluchsee. ☺ I’m guessing it’s changed vastly since I was there… over twenty years ago! It was the place that taught me real swimming – more than one hour out of my depth as after messing around for a bit we suddenly attempted to swim across it! Das war gut!?
Wow, sounds wunderbar! Must look up this lake, thank you☺Ahh, memories… Schoenes Wochenende noch?
Hi Laurena, the pictures you took on holiday look very similar to mine
(I’m going to send you some of them on whatsup). I hope your break was as relaxing and recharging as mine. I loved the temperature early in the morning (15-16 degrees!) and we also got wet, but were not put off and had long lovely walks.
Back to Milan, the temperature is still above 30 and going to get worse over the weekend ??But your soup looks so yummy I’ve decided to make it for dinner tomorrow…My husband got home with some homegrown tomatoes from one of his customers and your recipe is exactly what I needed. We’ll let it cool down a bit….. and I’m sure it will be perfect! Thanks a lot 🙂
Anna☺I’m glad your holiday was relaxing… I hope you got home quicker than last time!?Looking forward to seeing photos – I’ll send some too! It’s cooled down a lot here and we’ve returned home to thick green grass! Let me know how the soup turns out- we came home to a giant courgette and loads of tomatoes so we’ll be making this again! Thanks for commenting over here!☺???
Hi Laurena, thanks for the lovely recipe….even if the temperature here is still high (32/33 degrees, sigh!), I couldn’t possibly wait to try it out because I had some lovely, homegrown tomatoes. So it’s going to be soup tonight, we’ll have it at room temperature rather than piping hot but I’m sure it will be delicious.
Hope your holiday break has been refreshing and relaxing, I like your photos, they’re very similar to mine (taken last week in the Italian Alps).
Anna I need to go and pick more tomatoes we have so many ready at once! Italian alps sounds wonderful ☺ maybe we’ll add that to our list of places to visit! It was actually chilly here yesterday – we had lentil soup ? I’ll be posting the dolma recipe soon – time to pick some more leaves I think!?
the soup looks awesome. Soup is great any time of the year, I think.
Thank you Mary.
Yes, soup is a great anytime food but we do tend to eat it more in the cold weather! Have you ever eaten chilled soups (savoury or sweet)?