We had a chilly, rainy day recently so I wanted to make a simple soup to warm everyone up. Soups are a great way to add extra flavors and nutrients to a meal. They are a great way to make a small amount if ingredients go a very long way and for that reason they can also be extremely inexpensive depending on the type of soup you are making. You can use store-bought stock or make your own. I opted for a very light and mild vegetable stock.

While I much prefer making stock from scratch, I’m not a huge fan of tossing the vegetables after making the stock so my stock veggies tend to be a little sparse or made up from vegetable scraps I have saved from recently cooked meals. You really can pile them in there if you want a stronger flavor. I just used a little onion, celery, parsley, and a bay leaf to make this one.

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I actually prefer a milder flavor when it comes to vegetable stocks as opposed to beef, chicke, or shrimp stocks. So this one worked very well. While it simmered for about 45 minutes, I prepped the rest of my ingredients.

For vegetables, I used collard greens, onion, celery, and garlic all sliced thin and long to match the noodles. After removing ththe collard stem, I cut it into eighths, rolled them up, and thinly sliced (chiffonade).

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Then, I thinly sliced the onion and celery.

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After the stock had simmered, I removed the stock veggies and added in my soup veggies with seasonings and half my salt. I broke between 1/4-1/2 cup of spaghetti noodles into quarters and added that as well. After simmering some more, I added the remaining salt, to taste, of course.

Small amount of ingredients that go a long way! I hope you enjoy this simple, comforting, and inexpensive little soup as much as my family did!

Veggie Noodle Soup

Ingredients

• 2 quarts (64 oz.) water
• 2-3 celery stalks, quartered
• 3 sprigs fresh parsley
• 1/4-1/2 onion
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/4-1/2 cup broken spaghetti noodles
• 1 stalk celery, sliced thin
• 1 collard leaf, stem removed, chiffonade cut
• 1/4 onion, sliced thin
• 1 clove garlic,
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 teaspoons salt, to taste

Directions

1. Combine water, whole celery stalks, whole quarter onion, parsley, and bay leaf with 2 quarts water; simmer 45 minutes
2. Remove celery, onion, parsley and bay leaf; discard
3. Add 1 teaspoon salt, thyme, pepper, sliced onion, chiffonade collard leaf, and celery; simmer 10 minutes
4. Add noodles; simmer 10-15 minutes
5. Add most of remaining salt; Taste and continue to add salt until preferred salt level is reached