#3.15 Springtime Vegetable Soup with Pesto

This is one of my favorite anytime soups. It has amazing flavor, filled with lots of yummy fresh veggies, and the leftovers (if ever any) hold up well. After a winter of heavy soups I like to add this lighter one to the rotation this time of year. Added bonus it's weight watcher friendly (5 pp) and very filling! 

Springtime Vegetable Soup with Pesto

prep time: 15 min           Cook time: 25 min         severing size: 8

Ingredients

1 tsp extra virgin oil oil

4 med leeks ( or green onions) diced white and light green parts

1 cup celery diced

1 cup carrots diced

1 cup zucchini diced

1 cup green peas (frozen or fresh)

1 tsp salt 

1 tsp garlic minced

64  oz canned chicken broth

19 oz canned cannelini beans drained and rinsed 

14 1/2 oz canned diced tomatoes drained (I like the basil & herbs but totally up to you)

4 tsp pesto sauce (you can add more to taste)

Instructions:

1) Dice all your vegetables then heat oil in large soup pot over medium heat. Add leeks, celery, carrots and salt. Cook for about 10 minutes stirring frequently until vegetables begin to soften

be sure to drain & rinse beans

2) stir minced garlic into pot and cook for 1 minute

3) add broth and increase heat to high to bring to a boil. 

4) After boiling is reached stir in diced zucchini, peas, beans and tomatoes. Cook for about 10 minutes allowing flavors to blend.

5) Serve soup by swirling 1/2 tsp pesto into top of each serving.  If you are serving this at a later time add pesto prior to eating rather than before storing it. Believe it or not adding the pesto at the end makes a huge difference in taste!

Yields 1 1/4 cups of soup per serving

adapted from weightwatchers recipe meeting guide spring 2012

You can make your own pesto recipe with fresh basil and freeze it in an ice cube tray for use later up to 3 months. A good simple recipe I like is from Food Network. 

Word of warning watch where you are getting your pine nuts. Stay away from any Chinese products as there have been instances of reactions to a different species of pine nuts that can give you "pine mouth" a horrible bitter metallic taste with no matter what you eat/drink that can last for days to weeks. This happened to me a couple summers ago it was terrible. Expired nuts can also cause this reaction so check those dates! 

#13 camp out...er in?

Let me attempt to justify this bit of craziness with it could have been the combination of being alone house sitting for a week, every friend unavailable to go out when I actually had a weekend night free, or being stuck inside from yet another snowstorm that this list item took the shape it did.

 I have been reviewing my list and saw there is quite a bit left to do including: #13 sleep under the stars.  My original intention was to go camping and well with only 3 months to finish and the never ending winter I wasn't going to take any chances and took some liberty to creatively fulfill this item.

a skylight with a open view to the sky

There was a perfectly good skylight, stars above + me sleeping below=close enough. Plopping down a sleeping bag in the middle of the living room would be too boring so I decided to go all out and have a indoor camp out. I put up a tent, made a fire, unplugged the electronics, and made some yummy snacks.

I love how tents go from this:                             to this:

in just a short amount of time.  I'm usually really good at putting up a tent by myself but I must have been rusty because this one took a few tries to get it right. There is always an extra pole or two in case you loose one right?

Now no camping trip is complete without a campfire. But I probably wouldn't win the best house sitter title if there was a fire pit ring burnt into the carpet. Instead I used a flameless candle and rolled up bits of paper bag to simulate my fire...volia and with half the mess to clean up in the morning!

fire pit...worked pretty well too

Dinner was grilled hot dogs and I made s'mores for a dessert treat. While I could have easily made them in the oven, I was missing that hint of burnt carbon so opted for the candle approach. It worked a lot better than I thought. Just be sure to skip the scented candle s'more a-la tropical paradise smell isn't all that appealing to the tastebuds.

sir can I have s'more please?

It was nice to unplugged from all electronics for the evening and I was able to look up through tent and see a couple stars before the next winter storm rolled in.

good morning...ugh more snow! 

Best sleep ever in a tent I will say...if only every camp site could be free of rocks and roots, but I guess that would be taking away a key part of camping.

This idea could be easily adapted for a really cute date night or even kids slumber party or like me when you've just had enough of the cold weather. If you don't have a sky light just improvise and hang up some twinkle lights you'll get the same effect

yep pretty much had to "rough it"

Other great camping things to not forget: flash lights and scary stories to share

You know come to think of it it's not the first time I've camped in the living room...east 18th ladies I believe we had one up for a while there around my 21st birthday. haha

On to more adventures.....