so there is something that i must admit here. i love soup. is honestly the best. they are all great, blended, chunky, spicy, brothy. i love to take them to work and heat them up with a bun or salad. winter begs you to bring out your soup pot and put it to good use.
this is one of the easiest more delicious recipes i have ever come across. seriously, so tasty with a base of hearty tomato and the fresh rosemary gives it depth and heartyness. and a breeze to make. literally the hardest part is opening so many cans. this recipe could be made in the blender but if I had an immersion blender i would have used that and would be able to say this is a one pot meal.
i first read about this recipe on orangette. a fabulous recipe blog if you don't already salivate over all of her recipes.
yields about 6 servings.
ingredients:
2 15-ounce cans chickpeas
3 Tbs olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and coarsely chopped
2 3-inch sprigs fresh rosemary, needles removed from stem and finely chopped
2 cans diced tomatoes, one 28-ounce and one 14.5-ounce
A pinch of sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
4 cups vegetable stock (I used Imagine brand)
Drain the canned chickpeas in a colander, and rinse them well.
Warm the olive oil in a large soup pot over medium-low heat, and add the garlic and rosemary. Cook for a minute or two, and then add the tomatoes, sugar, salt, a few grinds of pepper, roughly half of the chickpeas, and the stock. Bring to a boil over high heat; then reduce the heat to low and simmer, partially covered, for 20 minutes.
Remove the soup from the heat to purée. If using an immersion blender, purée the soup directly in the pot. Otherwise, wait a few minutes, until the soup cools; then purée it in batches in a blender or food processor and return it to the pot. Add the remaining chickpeas, and warm the soup over medium heat. Serve warm.
warm the olive oil in a large soup pot over med heat. add the garlic.
chop up the fresh rosemary. given the super low cost of the rest of the ingredients i would defiantly say don't skimp out and use dried rosemary. so much of the flavor is from this ingredient.
add the rosemary to the party in the pot.
next add the whole tomatoes
and some salt and pep
and the sugar. i had brown crystal sugar, i don't think it matters
rinse the chickpeas while the rest of the ingredients are simmering.
i didn't have any stock on hand so i used the crystal stuff that you add boiling water too. not my finest moment but just know if you use this stuff you probably won't need too much extra salt for seasoning.
add about half of the chickpeas to the pot
and the stock too. now simmer that for a while. maybe do some dishes or decided to pull out the blender for the next step only to realize the horrible waste of space in the cabinets above the fridge, so then you get a little distracted organizing that. you know, or maybe not.
take the soup off the heat for 5 or 10 minutes to let it cool slightly before putting it in the blender. be careful to only fill the blender slightly over halfway because the soup will expand and will still be extremely hot. also i seem to have misplaced the lid to mine so this make this step extra important.
blend all of the soup.
put it back in the pot and add the rest of the chickpeas. i warmed the soup back up because i wanted to add some extra seasoning, as you will see in the next step, but if you didn't want to add anything else the soup would be ready now.
after tasting it i decided to go with some extra rosemary and pepper. it was the first time making this recipe when i took the photos but i have made this soup many times since and always go heavy on the rosemary.
then its time to pack it up into mason jars and let it cool down some more. mason jars are the perfect thing to bring soup to work in. the perfect amount, no spilling, super easy to clean, plus pretty cute looking i think. sometimes i just heat the soup up in the glass jars and eat it just like that.
enjoy!
