Beryl Tate the Kitchen Doctor E-mail: beryl@tatewise.co.uk
INSTANT SOUP

This is a standby soup with not a fresh item in sight. The beauty of this soup is that you can substitute like mad. Use canned carrots instead of tomatoes, orange juice instead of water, lentils instead of pasta, frozen peas or beans instead of sweetcorn. As long as you have creativity, you will produce a tasty soup.

INGREDIENTS to serve 4 to 6 people :-

1 tablespoon dried onions

400 g (14 oz) can of chopped tomatoes

1 tablespoon tomato purée

1 tablespoon pesto

1 pinch sugar

1 vegetable stock cube

50 g (2 oz) pasta shapes or spaghetti broken into even pieces

420 g (15 oz) can of mixed pulses or any one variety of pulses

320 g (11 oz) can of sweetcorn

salt and pepper to taste

METHOD :-

Put the dried onions and the can of chopped tomatoes into a saucepan, plus two canfuls of water. Stir in the tomato purée, pesto, sugar, and the stock cube.

Bring the mixture to the boil. Add the pasta and simmer gently until the pasta is just cooked.

Drain and rinse the pulses and sweetcorn, and add them to the pasta mixture. Adjust the seasoning before serving.

ALTERNATIVES :-

You could replace the chopped tomatoes with a can of carrots, but billy whiz them in your food processor before making the soup.

With the carrots you can use two canfuls of orange juice instead of the water.

As an alternative for the pasta you could substitute lentils.

In place of the sweetcorn try frozen or canned peas or beans.