A fresh tasting minestrone soup, featuring summer vegetables but delicious any time of year. Vegan and easily made gluten-free with GF pasta. Serve with homemade lentil balls for a heartier meal.
Heat the olive oil in a stockpot. Add the garlic, onion, carrots and celery. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is starting to become tender, about 5-7 minutes. Add the thyme, pepper, chili flakes, and bay leaf, and cook until fragrant, about 60 seconds.
Stir in the vegetable broth and bring to a boil. Add the pasta, reduce the heat to a steady simmer and cook until the pasta is al dente (about 10-12 minutes, depending on the choice of pasta shape). Add the zucchini and simmer for another 2 minutes.
Stir in the spinach and lemon juice, and cook until the spinach is wilted, about 2 minutes more. Add the parsley and season with additional salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste. Serve hot.
Notes
LENTIL BALLS: If planning to serve lentil balls in the soup, I recommend adding 2 rice cakes or about 1/2 cup cooked rice to the walnut blender mixture for the lentil balls. This helps them to hold together a bit better for this particular usage of them.If including the lentil balls, I recommend starting by getting the lentil balls in the oven, then proceeding with the soup, so that they're ready to serve at around the same time. As a bonus, you can do cleanup while the soup simmers and the lentil balls bake, so that there's not much left to do after dinner is served :).NUTRITION FACTS: Nutrition facts include the soup only.