Arrrgh me hearty vegetable soup

A few years ago, it was routine that mum and I would do the rounds of the local farmers markets and stock up on fresh fruit and vegetables. I hate to say, but the quality of the produce has significantly deteriorated over the years, and what's worse is that the prices have increased. Nevertheless, we decided to do the rounds again this weekend. Over Saturday and Sunday we covered three markets, one fruit barn and one supermarket so I could get all the ingredients to make three specific items over the next couple of days:

1. Vegetable Soup
2. Vietnamese/Japanese dinner
3. Tomato and chilli salsa

It was planned to have the Vietnamese/Japanese dinner tonight, but by the time 4pm rolled around, I just couldn't be bothered cooking! So, I pulled out all the veggies from the fridge to make the soup.

I have no recipe for most of the main meal foods I make, and soup is one of those things where you can add whatever your tastebuds desire! Tonight we had leek, capsicum,celery, onion, zucchini, sweet potato, potato, butternut pumpkin, peas, corn, carrot, garlic, chicken stock and a tin of diced tomatoes.

Winter is the ideal time for making huge batches of vegetable soup, but summer is great for being able to eat it cold as if it were gazpacho!

It only took 45 minutes to cook the vegetables nice and soft.

Served with some hot multi-grain bread rolls, there was more than sufficient for three meals and plenty of left overs! Oh, sprinkle some grated parmesan and cracked black pepper on top when serving for some extra flavour.