For April, I decided to make a soup and sandwich combination that’s perfect during Lent and a great hello to spring. This month’s soup is a hardy Vegetarian Vegetable served with a colorful vegetable panini. I also discovered panini is the plural of panino which is what one sandwich is called in Italian.

I made my own vegetable broth from vegetable peels and trimmed ends I save and freeze during the week. I always make the broth the day before I intend to use it. The ingredients for this recipe are simple and inexpensive. The wonderful thing about vegetable soup is its flexibility. You can use whatever fresh or frozen vegetables you have in your kitchen, try some new combinations, or stick to a specific recipe. You can also add beans to up the protein. I decided to use the vegetables in the recipe. I did vary the spices I used and added some pepper flakes because we like a spicier soup.

Here is the link for the soup recipe, https://www.cookingclassy.com/vegetable-soup/

Making vegetable soup requires a lot of chopping time depending on the size you want to make your vegetables, but once the vegetables are in the pot, your soup only requires the occasional stir and taste test to adjust the spices.  I like the look of a chunky soup, but the soup cooks faster and the vegetables absorb more of the flavor of the spices if they are chopped into smaller pieces.

Always sauté your carrots, onions, celery, and garlic in olive oil before adding your vegetable broth and other vegetables and spices.

I forgot to take a photo of my ingredients before I made my soup, so I pulled out a few vegetables to give you an idea of what I used. I make soup so often I’m almost on autopilot. My apologies for forgetting this step because the fresh vegetables and vegetable broth are so colorful.

We loved this soup! It was colorful and delicious – just the right combination of heartiness without being heavy, and it was the perfect soup to go with our vegetable panini.

I made sure to take a picture of the ingredients for the vegetable panini recipe. This is the link to the recipe I used, https://www.homechef.com/meals/roasted-vegetable-panini

This recipe includes a simple salad to go with the panini, but I didn’t make it because we were serving it with soup, and I had leftover salad in the frig from our Sunday dinner. The recipe is simple and easy to do. I varied the spices in this recipe to include Harissa, Za’atar, and garlic. I made my own pesto with basil, garlic, walnuts, salt, and pepper and added some coarse ground Dijon mustard and Balsamic vinegar for some extra zip.

My vegetables took longer to roast than the recipe suggests. I checked them at the ten-minute mark and ended up giving them ten more minutes. While they roasted, I sliced the sourdough bread, applied the pesto to one side of each sandwich, and topped it with Swiss cheese. After letting the roasted vegetables cool slightly, I heated olive oil in the pan, added the vegetables to the other side of the sandwich. Instead of using a panini maker, I went old school and pressed a skillet down on the sandwiches as they cooked. After three minutes, the sandwiches weren’t the golden brown I wanted, so I ended up doing six minutes for each side. I rotated the top skillet every two minutes to be sure the panini were evenly pressed down.

The sandwiches were delicious. My son James who originally grumbled because there was no ham in the recipe didn’t miss it at all because the vegetables are so flavorful. The next time I make this recipe and believe me there will be a next time, I will add ham to some of the panini, so he can compare the sandwiches.

One loaf of Sourdough bread made seven sandwiches. I made two at a time. One sandwich each was perfect with the soup, so we had multiple meals from these recipes.

Next month, I will be preparing Black Bean Soup and Mexican Kale Salad in honor of Cinco de Mayo.

The Twelve Months of Soup

January – Chicken Noodle Soup and Mandarin Orange Salad

February – Seafood Bisque and Strawberry Spinach Salad with Champagne Vinaigrette Dressing

March – Potato and Leek Soup and Beet Salad

April – Vegetarian Vegetable Soup with a Vegetable Panini

May – Black Bean Soup and Mexican Kale Salad

June – Italian Wedding Soup with a Chicken Wrap

July – Minestrone Soup with a Hoagie

August – Broccoli Cheddar Soup with Quinoa Salad

September – Tomato Basil Soup with a grilled Cheese Sandwich

October – Slow Cooker Black Bean Chili and Pomegranate and Wild Rice Salad

November – Butternut Squash Soup with a turkey sandwich

December – Split Pea Soup with a Ham Sandwich