Quick Boil Pumpkin and Corn Vegetarian Soup

What started as a simple vegetable soup, turned into an interesting mix of hot and cold vegetables because I could! The children had the soup warm, served with macaroni for dinner and it’s an easy quick boil, meatless soup. You can add real meat if you’d like, ideally chicken breast or thighs for a quick boil or even Chinese preserved ham. A great, quick soup for those times when you’re just running out of time, but have a fridge full of vegetables! The base is quite easy and you can add any other vegetables that suit your taste!

For the quick boil, you’ll need to have small pieces of vegetables to enable them to cook faster and release flavours faster. I always keep the cobs for the soup base, there is SO MUCH flavour in those things! Throw everything into a pot of boiling water as a start.

Throw in the shucked loose corn and broth and boil on high heat for 30 minutes. You can throw in the snow peas to blanch for 2 minutes and then serve.  What I also did here was have extra “greek salad” ingredients (raw cucumbers, raw tomatoes, and parsley) just for fun – but it tasted awesome!

Ingredients

• 1/2 fresh Japanese pumpkin, cubed (with skin off)

• 2 fresh corn, shucked (keep the cob for the soup)

• 20 fresh snow peas

• 1 teaspoon of vegetable broth powder (or half a cup of vegetable soup stock)

• 2 L of water

Cooking Instructions

1. In a pot of boiling water, add cubed pumpkin, corn cobs, corn kernals and stock (or powder)
2. Boil in high for 30 minutes
3. Before serving, blanch the snow peas in the soup for 2 minutes
4. Serve and enjoy!

The beauty of this is that you can add in your choice of cubed vegetables, such as carrots, radish, and even tomatoes that compliment the sweet flavours of the pumpkin.  

Alternatively, you can use miso paste instead of chicken powder, which is just as tasty as  quick boil!