The weather's getting colder and we're getting big into soups again here at The Madhouse. Madhouse Daddy makes a brilliant vegetable soup and we've also successfully branched out into French Onion Soup and Mexican Black Bean Soup but I wanted to try something a bit different last night. A bag of dried chickpeas was the starting point (but you could use tinned instead).
Bacon & Chickpea Soup
ingredients :
half a bag of dried chickpeas
200g bacon lardons
1 large red onion
2 carrots
1 Knorr Rich Beef Stock Pot
1 Knorr Garlic Flavour Pot
1/2 Knorr Chilli Flavour Pot
2 bay leaves
1 tin chopped tomatoes
herbs and spices of choice : I used oregano, garlic salt and lots and lots of lime pepper
Start by leaving the chickpeas to soak overnight. Top up the water every now and then. Drain in a colander, rinse and sift through to remove any discoloured ones.
In a large pot, fry the bacon. Add the onion and carrots and cook in the bacon fat, stirring, for 5-10 minutes until the onions are soft. Pour into a colander to remove excess fat then return to the pot.
Add the tin of tomatoes and the stock pots. (You could of course use fresh ingredients but these are a great time saver.)
Add the chickpeas and pour boiling water to almost the top of the pan. Drop in the bay leaves.
Leave to simmer for 30-40 minutes until it has thickened and the flavours have developed. The chickpeas drink up a lot of water so be prepared to top up halfway through the cooking time. Taste and adjust the seasoning as required. You may like to add extra salt or chilli - we discovered that lime pepper gives it a nice zesty kick.
You can eat it as a hearty, chunky soup (see above) or blitz it with a stick blender if you prefer. (You'll need to add extra water.) Madhouse Daddy always prefers smooth soup and it usually gets the kids eating more vegetables if they can't see what's in it !
Serve with crusty bread and butter. You could sprinkle grated cheese over the top too.
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This looks lovely, bet it was really filling as well
ReplyDeleteIt was - cheap too :)
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