Minestrone Soup

I love minestrone soup. It is an amalgam of lot of vegetables cooked together with less or no spices at all. Yet it tastes just heavenly. One bowl of this soup coupled with bread toast and scrambled eggs makes a fulfilling meal fitting for dinner.

Ingredients:                                          Cooking time: 35 minutes ü  1 onion (chopped) ü  2 tomatoes (chopped) ü  1 carrot (chopped) ü  1/2 cup green peas (boiled or frozen) ü  1/2 cup corn kernels ü  25 gm of butter ü  2 tbsp grated cheddar cheese ü  50 gm of broken noodles or broken capellini pasta (boiled) ü  30 gm of basil leaves (chopped) ü  Salt to taste ü  Black pepper powder taste wise For stock: ü  3 tbsp masoor dal or red lentils ü  1 onion (coarsely chopped) ü  1 potato (roughly chopped) ü  1 carrot (roughly diced) ü  1 cup all-purpose flour (80 gm) ü  2 bay leaves Method: 1) Pressure-cook the ingredients for stock in 3 or 4 cups of water up to 2 whistles. Bring the cooker to room temperature and open the lid. Using a blender, grind the ingredients into a mixture of smooth consistency. (Important: no lump should be there.) 2) Now take 1 cup of water and mix in salt and black pepper powder into it. Pour this to the lentil mixture and stir in. 3) Pour the mixture into a wok and heat it. Add chopped tomatoes, onions and carrots into the mixture along with corn kernels, basil leaves and peas. Gently stir to mix the ingredients properly. Add more water if you want to thin down the consistency of the soup. 4)  Add butter and salt. Bring the soup to a boil. Toss in the grated cheese and allow it to melt into the soup. Mix in the noodles or pasta. 5) Serve hot.