Spinach and rice Soup

One of my favourite and most used cookbooks is Family Meals for a Fiver (Good Housekeeping). I don’t know where I got it from, most likely somewhere cheap and cheerful like The Works. I’ve had it for years and have cooked lots of stuff from it.  So, here’s a recipe for spinach & rice soup – filling and rustic.

Whenever I make soup, I go large! Make a big pot of this spinach & rice soup and then have it for lunch at work – either freezing part of it or just filling up a load of plastic tubs and sticking them in the fridge. Granted, by Friday you’re ready for something else but it’s a cheap and healthy way of feeding yourself at work and the flavours only intensify as the week goes on.

Spinach and rice soup, serves 2:

Ingredients: 

• Olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• Large pinch thyme
• Large pinch rosemary
• Grated zest 1/2 lemon
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 125g arborio rice
• 1.1 litres vegetable stock
• 225g frozen and thawed spinach
• 4 tbsp pesto
• Freshly shaved parmesan and salt & pepper to serve

Method:

• Heat half the olive oil in a pan and add the onion, garlic, herbs, lemon and spice then fry gently for 5 minutes.
• Add the remaining oil and rice and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the stock, bring to the boil and simmer gently for 20 mins or until the rice is tender.
• Stir in the spinach and pesto. Cook for 2 minutes then season to taste.
• Pour into warmed bowls and serve drizzled with olive oil and topped with parmesan shavings. OR, pour into Tupperware and cool before refrigerating. Perfect for office lunches or to feed a crowd at short notice (just add crusty bread!).

The finished spinach & rice soup is delicious topped with a couple of shavings of fresh parmesan and a crack of black pepper! Enjoy!