Tuesday, September 30, 2008

reinventing leftovers

I had a ton of pasta sauce leftover from Friday night's dinner, but I really wasn't feeling like eating pasta tonight -- I've come down with the cough that all of my little folks at work have, and soup sounded MUCH better. So, I pawed through my cupboards, fridge, and freezer, and made a pseudo-minestrone:
example
I started by sauteeing some carrot, celery, onion, and garlic in a little canola oil. In went about 3 cups of leftover marinara, 2 cups cooked chickpeas, and 4 cups vegetable broth. Boil, then simmer for fifteen minutes or so. While I was working on the soup, I cooked 1 cup of spelt and stirred that into the soup after it had finished simmering. Top with parmesan and voila! Soup's on.

I'm loving the chewy, firm, almost "squeaky" spelt in this. More whole grains in soups, I say!

6 comments:

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

So comforting!

Anonymous said...

This looks so yummy - I plan on making much more soup this fall and winter.

Judy's Nutrition said...

That's a really great idea for reinventing leftovers - I was thinking chili.

Crystal said...

We also had minestrone last night...defrosted a freezer bag of it from about 3 months ago. I'm not usually a fan of freezer leftovers, but it rocked! As the grain, we used barley.

Anonymous said...

It's definitely soup season - and all the better with grains!

Anonymous said...

I love spelt--isn't it great?!

Your soup sounds perfect for our cooler nights :o)

Courtney