VERY CHEAP BUT VERY GOOD VEGETABLE SOUP

This is one ugly soup, I can agree with that but you can't expect that every desired aspect is covered by a dish that both taste great and is really cheap to make; this is the perfect soup for those times when you somehow find yourself with a restricted budget but variations on pasta dishes like pasta in bianco (pasta with parmesan cheese) or aglio, olio e peperoncino is getting a bit boring and you feel your body screaming for vegetables. So you buy yourself a cauliflower, use the cauliflower for a recipe I will post next week (or maybe this, this or this) but keep the leaves and the stem/trunk of the cauliflower. I often feel that I throw away parts of vegetables that I could use for something else so I have started to experiment a bit with what 'traditionally', or maybe I should say nowadays, are discarded as uneatable parts of different vegetables. I was pleasantly surprised by this soup, especially as I had kept it very simple in order to feel what it tasted like and therefore only used three main ingredients: the leaves and stem/trunk of a cauliflower, tomatoes and parsley. It is actually much better than any cauliflower soup I have ever tried and I will from now on treasure those leaves and see to that I only buy cauliflowers with a lot of them attached instead of going for those boring trimmed ones!





VERY CHEAP BUT VERY GOOD VEGETABLE SOUP

The leaves and stem/trunk of 1 cauliflower
2 big tomatoes
Chopped parsley
Salt
Extra virgin olive oil

- Chop the leaves and the stem/trunk of the cauliflower and braise them for 3-4 minutes in a pot in some olive oil. Add salt.
- Chop the tomatoes, add these to the pot and sauté for another 3-4 minutes.
- Add water until the vegetables are well covered and simmer for about 15 minutes.
- Blend until it's on the smooth side, if it's too dense you add some more water and heat it up. Check if more salt is needed.
- Serve hot or cold.