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French Fridays with Dorie: Provençal Vegetable Soup

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So fresh & delicious!

This week’s French Fridays with Dorie challenge is for Provençal Vegetable Soup which is summer in a bowl!  We both loved this soup.  Once everything chopped and mis en place, it was so easy to make.  Soup is one of those dishes we usually just throw together, often we include leftover bits of meat or vegetables in it with whatever seasoning appeals to us, so it was different following a recipe to make soup.

We used tomatoes and herbs from our garden to make this wonderful summer soup.  It’s so flavorful and hearty.  Chock full of fresh summer herbs and vegetables, this soup has got to be good for whatever ails you.  It’s just packed with flavor & vitamins.  Living in SoCal, we could make this soup year-round, and we undoubtedly will!  We loved it as is, but I think I would add more tomatoes next time.  I bought pre-made Genoa Pesto at Trader Joe’s simply because I wasn’t sure what I would do with a whole bag of Pine Nuts.

Simmering goodness – Bay Leaf from our Mediterranean Bay Tree

Here’s a “Bonne Idee” from me:  If you pre-cook the pasta (we used Macaroni) before adding it to the soup, it won’t get mushy.  We did this and reduced the broth from 6 cups to 4.  Because the pasta was precooked, I stirred it in with the corn and tomatoes.
We served this soup with Rebecca Rather’s Beer Bread which was the perfect accompaniment.

Bon Appetit!

We had a great time exploring LA’s Grand Central Market with the Food Bloggers of Los Angeles on Saturday!
These recipes are provided for your personal use. If you publish them, or re-post them, please give me credit. Grazie e Buon Appetito!

Comments

  1. Kathy says

    Your soup looks mouthwatering, Susan! I really enjoyed this one…Bill not so much. He was missing the meat! I will have to try your tip about precooking the pasta…great suggestion! Happy Friday!

  2. Diane Balch says

    So jealous that your veggies are from your garden. You are the second person I read who was concerned about bags of pine nuts… I just made the pesto without them it tasted fine, but I also had tons of basil that my mother had just given us that I needed to do something with other than the tomato, basil, mozzarella appetizers we keep eating (our favorite in the summer.)

  5. oneexpatslife.com says

    True, this one did keep me much closer to the kitchen than a normal soup because something new needed to be added every 10 minutes. So not quite as low maintenance as other soup recipes, but I was really surprised by how tasty it was.

    And that market looks amazing.

  6. Nana says

    Your soup looks delicious, and with that bread, it’s perfect. I enjoyed seeing the photos of your
    visit to the market. Everything looks quite interesting.

  7. dulceshome.com says

    Your soup looks delicious!! I was thrilled just to get it completed, then enjoyed it so much!!

    I usually have pine nuts (in the freezer), since I make quite a bit of pesto, but I’m sure your version was plenty tasty! The market looks really fun, BTW!

  8. Arisuchan says

    I didn’t know you were part of this group!! ; ) we went extra heavy on the carrots, zucchini & basil – it was so perfect, wasn’t it?

  9. Cocoa and Lavender says

    We use a ton of pine nuts in our house! They are so good in everything! One summer I made pine nut butter and tomato jam, and made PB&J sandwiches with some basil leaves. Yum! Now, on to the soup – this is the best summer soup ever! Thanks for reminding me that it is time to make some! ~ David

  10. Mary Hirsch says

    I really enjoyed this soup, Susan, and can also make it year round since Cambria has a 12-month market. Thanks you for the pasta idea. I liked the addition of pasta but it did turn mushy after the second day. I had enough soup to enjoy and freeze but the pasta messed up those plans. I will definitely use your Bonne Idée the next time I make it. Beer bread is a great combo with this.

  12. Betsy says

    I’m jealous that you could make this all-year-round, if you chose. It looks great. I did the same thing with my pasta with good results (great minds think alike!), though I didn’t reduce the broth. I love the photo of Grand Central Market. Now I’m sorry that we didn’t make time for it during our recent SoCal visit. I’m going to try out the beer bread too. We have some summer ale that no one seems to want to drink, so I’ll see how it is in beer. It’s not that the beer is bad, it’s just on the sweet side, and no one here wants to drink sweet beer. This seems like the perfect solution.

  14. Cher Rockwell says

    Yup – the pasta definitely needs its own cooking space.
    Oh, you Californians with your year round produce that makes the rest of us so jealous 🙂 Your soup looks lovely.

  15. Teresa says

    I finally managed to post about this one, so I’m catching up on everyone else’s posts. I love that most everything in your soup came from your garden. I managed to get the last of my summer garden veggies into mine, too. Love the look of the bread!