Veggies, Chickpea and Pasta Soup

QUICK! Make this recipe before the weather is too warm for soup!

Seriously though, we're still experiencing enough cool, rainy days here in Vancouver to warrant having a nice warm soup for dinner now and then. On top of it being a really easy dinner to make, it's also a great opportunity to throw a ton of vegetables and beans into a dish - and those things do a body good. So eff you, milk.

Here's what you need:

• whole wheat rotini (or any other kind of whole wheat pasta that you like)
• 2-3 garlic cloves, chopped
• about 1/2 cup onion, chopped
• 1-2 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 can chickpeas (drained and rinsed)
• 1/4 cup chopped basil
• kale - enough for each bowl of soup to have a nice handful
• chicken broth (or veggie broth)
• about 2 tbsp of tomato paste
• water
• pepper
• small amount of salt
• Optional: 1 cup of chopped spinach

.  what the french call "ingrédients"  .
.  see how they add that extra diagonal line over the e?  .
.  the french are so clever  .

The first step is to begin your pasta in one pot. NOW I DON'T WANT TO BRAG but if there's one thing I am pretttttty adept at doing... it's boiling water, lowering pasta into it and setting a timer. I guess that's three things. Nevertheless, I do them well (and often). So yeah, start your pasta. I'd recommend boiling the pasta for juuuust a little bit less time than you normally would. That's because you're eventually going to put your pasta back into the rest of the soup, and you don't want it to become overcooked at that point.

In a separate pot or dutch oven, sauté your onions and garlic in some olive oil until your kitchen starts to smell delish (usually when the onions are becoming a bit translucent). The most "difficult" part of this entire recipe is not burning your garlic. That's pretty much the only part where you need to exercise any real responsibility. Burnt garlic is enough to not only ruin your whole dish, but also make your entire apartment smell like.... burnt garlic. #NotSexy.

The rest of the recipe is almost entirely comprised of "dumping stuff into your pot" and then letting it reach the correct temperature. In this case, that temperature is "hot... but not so hot that you burn your tongue when you eat it." (Unless of course you're into that?)

Once your kitchen smells good from the garlic/onions, time to add some more stooooof to that pot. Add as much chicken broth as you feel like - it's your soup, I don't care how much of it you make! I added about 2 cups. Next throw in your carrots and your whole can of chickpeas.

In a tiny blender (all of my appliances are tiny), combine your chopped tomatoes with your basil and a little bit of water and blend till they've become one. Add this mixture into your soup and stir it all up. Scoop your tomato paste into the soup and mix well. Your shit should really be looking like a soup now.

Now take a look at what you've got... Taking into consideration that you're going to add some pasta into this mixture eventually, how do you feel about the broth-to-other-ingredients ratio? If you think it needs more liquid, add water. Season this pot of stuff with pepper and a littttttle bit of salt (don't forget your broth probably already has a ton of sodium in it) and just let it do its thing until it's a temperature you feel like eating. When it's just about "ready," add in your cooked pasta and spinach. (Adding spinach to a soup or sauce at the very end is a good way to prevent it from getting mushy and gross in your dish.)

YOU'RE ALMOST DONE.

Before you scoop your soup into serving bowls, throw a nice handful of roughly chopped kale into the bottom of each bowl. Ladle the soup over the top of the kale and serve. BAM! FOOD.

Pretty easy and pretty packed with gewd stoof. Don't act like you don't still want soup sometimes, even when the weather is warmer. This is fabulous as a dinner, by itself, or you could have a small bowl of it alongside a grilled cheese, in place of a boring tomato soup. It's also easy to make a ton of this soup and freeze the leftovers - I'd just recommend keeping the kale/spinach separate from everything else until you're about to serve it. Kale and/or spinach wilting away inside of soup is just not a good time.