Kountry Kitchen Vegetable Soup

This is wonderful on a chill fall night with some French bread and a nice Merlot! A crisp salad with make for a hearty meal!

Level: Easy

Groceries:

• 1T Olive Oil
• 2C onions, chopped
• 1 long red chilli, seeded and chopped
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 3 medium carrots, chopped
• 10-12 button mushrooms, sliced
• 4-5 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1C dried porcini mushrooms
• 3 large leaves of kale, centre vein discarded, rough chopped
• 1 small zucchini, chopped
• 1 14oz can chopped tomatoes
• 4C low sodium chicken stock
• 2 small bay leaves
• 1 tsp Herbs de Provence
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Meatballs (Optional)

How to:

In large dutch oven, preheat olive oil and add onions, carrots and celery. Cook on medium heat for 3 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 2 minute to release the flavours. Add the chilli, mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes. Add the kale, tomatoes, zucchini, stock, bay leaves and Herbs de Provence, salt and pepper. Simmer for 30 minutes.

In the version pictured here, I added some meatballs - they were just begging to be included!!