Easy, comforting, good: "Cream" of chickpea soup

As Annalena looks out her window, she sees the start of yet another blizzard.  She is finding it difficult to keep the lyrics of Anne Murray's "Snowbird" in her head, and think of the unborn grass lying waiting for the cold to turn to spring.  AGGH.  Winter has gotten much harder for her as she's aged. 


When weather like this is here, let's face it ragazzi.  We all want SOUP.  And since we all want to be healthy, and nourished, and warm, and full, and everything else, we want our soup to be healthy.  And nourishing.  And filling.  And of course, warm.    Oh, and if we're making it ourselves, shouldn't it be easy too?


Ragazzi, that is why Annalena is here.  Yes, she is very much into "the big easy," and this one is.    There is in fact no "cream" in the soup, and it is perhaps a "veluttata."  A "veluttata"  as the name might suggest, is something with a velvety texture.  One obtains this, by pureeing.  The result is something creamy.. with no cream.  Now, you can add cream to this if you like, but Annalena hesitates to think why you would want to. 

And it is the easiest thing in the world to make.   Even easier if you follow the shortcut Annalena provides.  Oh, and one other thing:  it's ridiculously cheap.

We ready?  Ok, here we go. You need onions, garlic, chickpeas , thyme, salt , olive oil, and broth.   

Nothing too costly there, huh?  For your chickpeas, the shortcut is three 15 ounce cans, which you drain.  If you MUST use the canned stuff, get organic ones.  Try, ragazzi, to do it the "hard way:"  get a pound of dried chickpeas and put them under water overnight.   You can handle this.  And the dried stuff is even cheaper.

To make your soup, chop up enough onions to fill a one cup measuring cup.  That may be one really big onion, a few small ones, etc.  DO use onions, because leeks are too sweet for the soup.  You also need between 4-6 cloves of garlic, which you will chop up roughly.    and about 3-4 sprigs of thyme.

Put a slick of garlic in your soup pot, and add the onions and garlic.  Do it before you start heating the oil, and heat them together.  Medium heat, please.  When the onion gets translucent, throw in your chickpeas, and stir them through the aromatic vegetables.  Now, add your stock. Annalena really likes chicken stock, but if you are a vegetarian, or a vegan (YES... this is a  VEGAN soup), use vegetable broth.  You will want about a quart, at least.  (We shall come to the "at least" below).  Taste the mix and add salt.  Make it a little less salty than you would like, because the liquid will evaporate, and you can always add more.  Put a cover on the pot, leaving a little venting space, and lower the heat to a mild simmer.  And let it go for at least an hour and a half.  Check at that point, by tasting a chickpea.  It should be realy really tender (if you have opted for the short cut, it will take about half an hour).  When you get to a soft texture, stop the cooking, and let the soup cool.  Check your liquid level.  You want about an inch or two above the beans.  If you don't have that, add water, or more broth.

Now, ladle the soup into a blender, perhaps 2-3 cups at a time and puree it. Take your time doing this, because you want something really smooth.  Keep doing it until all your soup is pureed, and then correct for salt and pepper.

Wasn't too hard, was it?  Annalena likes this soup as it, but it does good by a garnish of greens.  Any greens.  So if you have, for example, some spinach in the house, or some escarole, or anything - even salad greens - chop em up, and have at em.

Can't beat it on these cold days.  Can't beat it anyway.  Good cold too.

Next time around, we look at what Mother Nature gives us when the swordfish have gone south.