Chill in the Air a Perfect Time for Soup

Hi!

Fantasma here again.  It's almost spring, I'm so excited! But sadly it's still a bit chilly at night. So lets warm up with a soup recipe ^__^ This is one I tried out the other day, it's actually quite tastey. It's called Zuppa di Ceci, yep that's right an Italian recipe, it translates to chickpea soup. Chickpeas, garbanzo beans whatever you like to call them, these little beans are just packed with fiber approximately six grams a serving (about 1/2 a cup) to be exact and are a good source of protein and zinc.

To make this dish even better is that it's cheap to make too, just gotta love that part.

You'll need:

One pound of chickpeas

One stalk celery, diced

One carrot, diced

3 cloves of garlic, chopped or use garlic powder 1/8 tsp

One onion, diced

Three cups of chicken broth

Salt and Pepper

Now depending on what kind of preparation you want to use, the measure of chickpeas varies. I tend to buy dry chickpeas in bags and one small bag of chickpeas is a pound and after you soak them overnight it yields approximately 5 cups. After I soak the beans I cook them in the pressure cooker with a bit of oil. My pressure cooker takes about 25 minutes for the chickpeas to cook but cooking time varies on the type you have. I know this can take a bit of time but if you want the extra healthy version it's the way to go, you won't have to deal with all the sodium that comes with the canned chickpeas. So the pressure cooker version is best if you have highblood pressure and you're watching your sodium levels. You can also use canned chickpeas though, they're just as tastey.

Now saute your vegetables and garlic until tender with some olive oil and add the 3 cups of broth. I kind of cheat with the vegetables before I saute them to make sure they're nice and soft, I put them in the microwave for a little bit. Bring the broth and vegetable mixture to a boil then add your chickpeas. Let the soup cook for twenty minutes so the flavors come together. Then let it cool for a bit.

After it's cooled down a bit, I'd say close to room temperature you then blend the soup with a blender, food processor or one of those neat immersion blenders. Then bring the soup back into the pot and bring it to the temperature you want.

This soup goes great with bread. And you can sprinkle some parmesan cheese ontop or if you want to be creative some chopped bacon pieces. Also if you want a bit of texture in your soup you can reserve some of the chickpeas to put in at the end.

I have a nice soup recipe similar to this that has black beans instead of chickpeas but that's for another day ^___^

Hope you like it!