Yummy Chicken & Veggie Soup With Parmesan

I made this soup today and it was so awesome and so chucked together that I thought I'd better write it down so I could replicate it!  I made a huge batch so I could freeze extra portions.   The Parmesan rind in the stock was the stand out flavour addition.  This would be equally good without the chicken as a vegetarian soup.

Ingredients:
- 3 litres of stock
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1 piece of Parmesan cheese rind
- 1 small piece of pumpkin
- 2 zucchinis
- 1/2 a head of cauliflower
- a small bunch of silverbeet
- 1 packet of small soup pasta

Optional - roughly 500 grams of chicken breast cut into small, thin pieces - roughly 3 cm square in size and 0.5 cm in thickness.  I used Lilydale free range chicken stir fry pieces that I cut up in to smaller pieces - they happened to be on sale and worked well for a post kinder, quick cook up.

Directions:
- put the stock in a large pot on the stove and bring to a simmer. If you have any tired but flavoursome veggies in the fridge, add them in large pieces (so you can remove them later!!) to the stock.  I added a bunch of wilting spring onions and the chunky stalks of the cauliflower.  Add the Parmesan rind and the crushed cloves of garlic.  Allow to simmer gently while you prepare the other veggies (10-20 minutes for a lovely flavour).

- grate the pumpkin and zucchini and cut the florets of the cauliflower into small pieces.  Wash the silverbeet very well and tear or cut it up in to pieces.

- fish out the large extra flavouring veggies (spring onions & cauliflower stalk in my case) from the stock as well as the Parmesan rind and set aside.

- add the pasta and cauliflower and gently simmer for 5 minutes.

- add the grated pumpkin and chicken (if using it) continue to gently simmer for 5 minutes.

- add the grated zucchini and the silverbeet and continue to gently simmer for 5 minutes or until the pasta is al dente and the chicken is cooked through but still tender.  Take off the heat and add 500ml of cold water. This helps to stop the soup continuing to cook (so the pasta doesn't overcook and break apart). You don't want to overcook at this stage if you're reheating it so portion it up quickly to also help it cool. Freeze any leftovers.

If you like you can serve with a small sprinkle of finely grated Parmesan cheese and some fresh bread on the side - this is how my boys enjoyed it, but I think it's already a meal on it's own.

Yummo!!!!

I am already looking forward to having this for dinner again tomorrow night!

Love Amy xoxo