Ingredients
- 1 cup quinoa
- 1 tin of chickpeas, butter beans or kidney beans
- 2 carrots
- 1 potato
- 2 celery stalks
- 1 onion
- 1 tin chopped tomatoes
- 1 garlic clove
- Tumeric, cumin, oregano (and I can never resist a bit of cayenne pepper and paprika)
- 4 cups of vegetable stock
Method
Chop the onion, carrots, celery, potatoes and garlic (into chunks you’d want to eat in your soup… so pretty small). Add the onion and garlic to a hot heavy-based frypan and fry until the onion is soft.
Add the carrots and celery, and the spices and stir until the spices are aromatic and the carrot had softened slightly.
Add the stock and tinned tomatoes, bring to the boil, and then put the lid on (or if you have no lid, cover with some alfoil). Simmer for about 20 minutes until the carrot is basically cooked, and then add the quinoa (which is why you need so much stock). Cover again and cook for another 10 minutes.
Right towards the end, add your beans, and then serve. You will know when the quinoa is cooked because it goes semi-translucent, although quinoa can be eaten raw, and is always slightly crunchy so it doesn’t matter too much.
You could garnish with parmesan or parsley or both.
Suggestions
- If your soup needs more liquid, add more water from the kettle
- You could add all sorts to this recipe – spinach (put it in right towards the end), broccoli, cabbage, leek….