Chicken(less) Noodle Soup

First Time Lucky!

Amongst the blogs I follow is Tinned Tomatoes where Jacqueline co-hosts a monthly challenge, No Croutons Required, so this month I decided to try my luck.  The ingredient selected for the October challenge is noodles.

I have a great recipe from my Dad for chicken noodle soup, but then I noticed that the challenge is to create a vegetarian soup or salad; so what about chicken noodle soup without the chicken?  Worth a try?  And how to make it as tasty as the original?  And what seasonal produce can I incorporate?  Well, let's see what transpired...

 

Mushroom and Noodle Soup

Ingredients

1tbsp rapeseed oil or vegetable oil

1 onion, peeled and diced
1 leek, cleaned and sliced

2 carrots, peeled and diced

1 small swede, peeled and diced
250g mixed portabellini and chestnut mushrooms, thickly sliced

half tsp chilli flakes
2.5 pts vegetable stock
2 tbsp mushroom ketchup

1 portion fine egg noodles

salt and pepper
fresh parsley, chopped

Method

Heat the oil in a large saucepan.  Add the onion and leek and cook gently until transluscent.  Add the carrot and swede and continue to sweat gently with the lid on for about 5 minutes.  Now add the mushrooms, put the lid back on and cook until the mushrooms have reduced in volume.  Add the chilli flakes and stir well.

Pour the vegetable stock and mushroom ketchup into the vegetables and bring to a simmer.  Simmer for about 30 minutes until the vegetables are tender.  Break up and add the egg noodles and simmer for a further 5-10 minutes until the noodles are soft.  Add the parsley and stir.  Season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper and serve with vegetable spring rolls.

Note: I made my own vegetable stock, though you can use vegetable stock cubes, just be careful when
seasoning the soup as the stock cubes can be salty.