Aromatic Chick Pea (garbanzo Bean) Soup

Total Time: 1 hr Preparation Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 40 mins

Ingredients

• 2 (15 ounce) cans chickpeas, rinsed, strained, drained, and remove the papery shells
• 2 pints stock, preferably turkey
• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 3 celery ribs, diced
• 2 fresh garlic cloves, minced
• 2 large carrots, peeled & diced
• salt
• pepper
• nonstick cooking spray
• olive oil, to garnish
• rosemary, a few fresh sprigs
• sage, a few fresh sprigs
• thyme, a few fresh sprigs

Recipe

• 1 heat a soup pot over medium heat and add a generous amount of cooking spray. add onion, celery and carrots and sweat for a few minutes until softened.
• 2 add garlic and herbs and stir. add to your liking - some people like it stronger or milder than others. btw - if you tie the herbs with a string removal later is much easier.
• 3 cook for a minute or two and add chick peas. season. cook another minute and add the stock. season again. bring to a boil and quickly reduce heat to a simmer. simmer for about 20 minutes.
• 4 this soup is so aromatic that your whole house will smell warm and cozy!
• 5 remove the herbs and puree soup. normally i would use my hand held immersion blender here, but i decided to use my big regular blender because i wanted this soup to be velvety smooth. use whatever equipment you feel works best for you.
• 6 pour the soup back to the pot and cook at low heat for another 15-20 minutes until it reduces further. its important that it doesn't get too hot or simmer too long or the texture will get a bit grainy -- this goes for any blended vegetable or cream based soup.
• 7 i served the soup with a tiny drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil (i love the flavor and would rather use it here than in the cooking process) and some homemade garlic & rosemary croutons (let me know if you want me to post how i made these - but they are a super easy and great way to get use of some stale bread).