Hello lovelies, now that the temperature has dropped and autumn begins, I will spoil you with an appropriate recipe: Autumn minestrone with pumpkin and chestnuts. The best recipes develop coincidentally and that’s exactly how it was with this delicious minestrone.
Since the autumn school break will start next week, I have made it my goal to go less shopping and empty the pantry and freezer. Obviously I still had a pumpkin in the house – I hardly go without one in autumn – and I actually found most of the other ingredients in the freezer. Chickpeas, kidney beans and chestnuts – furthermore veggie left overs and peels which I keep in a small bag to make bouillon. It was quickly obvious that I will cook a minestrone with exactly these ingredients. I found some chard in my raised garden bed that has recently grown again.
BOUILLON FROM LEFT OVER VEGGIES
At first I made a bouillon. When I have let over veggies or peels, I collect them in a bag in the freezer to turn them into a bouillon. You can use almost anything for it – onion and carrot peels, also broccoli stem, fennel or celery pieces. Simply sauté onions and garlic in a pot, add the frozen left over veggies, deglaze with wine and add some water. Let it simmer for about 1 hour and you have a delicious base for soups made out of left overs and food waste. Of course this isn’t necessary for this recipe but rather a tip for you.
The minestrone turned out really delicious, especially the interaction of pumpkin and sweet chestnuts truly amazed me. I made the soup for lunch and ate 2 plates right away. We had them again for dinner with the girls and they liked it as well. Child 1 picked out the kidney beans but liked the rest, child 2 ate 2 (in words: two!) full plates and assured me over and over again this is the best soup I have made in a long time – music to my ears.
As you can see on the pictures we like a lot of vegetables and less bouillon in our soup. But of course you can vary the amount of bouillon just the way you like it. The minestrone was particularly tasty to me with fresh parsley and some grated vegan parmesan (for instance from Violife). And aren’t the small noodles cute? I recently found them in an Italian store.
Of course you can vary your veggies and use up whatever is in your pantry, freezer or fridge and needs to be eaten.
If the transition from summer to autumn was a little too sudden for you too, I can recommend this delicious autumn minestrone with pumpkin and chestnutsto you. It definitely warms up body and soul and is perfect for left over foods and kids like it – what more can you ask for.
You can find more great pumpkin recipes here on my blog.
Enjoy the sunny autumn days!
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