Gnocchi Pesto Soup

September 8, 2014

This calendar week I pulled out Isa Does It for weeknight dinner inspiration. I was quite taken past times the pesto pasta dish that Linda made recently but we'd only had pasta ourselves; instead I transferred my pesto enthusiasm to Moskowitz's recipe for pesto soup alongside gnocchi, beans together with greens.

The thickness of this soup comes from blended cauliflower together with basil alongside a ship upon of arrowroot, together with then it's non excessively rich. Then it's dotted alongside white beans, gnocchi together with chard (or inwards my case, spinach), providing lots to conk your teeth into. Like the book's sweet white patato together with ruby curry soup, it comes off equally much a stew equally a soup.

I used homemade stock together with then I increased the total of common salt inwards the recipe. While I loved the textures of this soup, I idea that the flavour was lacking a fleck of depth - ane time again that mightiness hold out downwardly to my vege-scrap stock, but I consider I'll essay stirring a fleck of white miso into the simmering broth inwards future. Otherwise, the entirely matter preventing me from making this all wintertime long volition hold out the unseasonal basil - I estimate it volition hold out improve savoured equally an tumble recipe.

Gnocchi pesto soup
(slightly adapted from a recipe inwards Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Isa Does It,
which equally good appears on PPK)

ii teaspoons olive oil
iv cloves garlic, minced
1/2 large caput cauliflower, cutting into florets
1L vegetable stock
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon common salt (add some white miso side past times side time?)
1/2 teaspoon dark pepper
1 tablespoon arrowroot
1 loving cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves
250g fresh gnocchi
400g tin cannellini  beans, drained together with rinsed
1 small-scale bunch spinach leaves, roughly chopped
toasted pino nuts, to garnish

Pour only plenty olive fossil oil into a large pot to comprehend the base; laid it over medium heat. Add the garlic together with laid upwardly it, stirring, for close a minute, ensuring it doesn't burn. Add the cauliflower together with iii cups of the stock. Stir inwards the thyme, common salt together with pepper (plus futurity miso). Place a lid on the pot together with convey it to the boil, cooking for some 10 minutes until the cauliflower is tender.

Place the arrowroot inwards a loving cup together with gradually pour inwards the remaining stock to shape a shine paste. Remove the lid from the pot together with pour inwards the arrowroot-stock, stirring it some together with cooking for five minutes until thickened (mine never did). Turn off the oestrus together with stir inwards the basil leaves. Blend the soup until smooth, preferably alongside a stick blender.

Return the soup inwards the pot to medium heat. Add the gnocchi, supervene upon the lid together with laid upwardly for iii minutes. Pour inwards the beans together with spinach leaves, stirring everything together gently, until the leaves are wilted. Serve inwards bowls, sprinkled alongside pino nuts.