Chickpea and Cabbage Soup

What do you do with a quarter of a cabbage and not much else? You make soup. Cabbage soup?! Are you serious? Um... Yes, if you use your not-much-else and make it delicious. I just made this up an hour ago and I love it! If you don't like the acidity, maybe you might like to temper it with a little sugar? (pft. just take it.) Ready? Here we go!

If having this as a main, I suggest heavy rye sourdough (maybe with melted parmesan on it if you're not vegan!) to soak up the liquidy goodness.

INGREDIENTS:

• Olive oil
  
• 1 onion (diced)
  
• 3 cloves garlic (diced)
  
• 5 Roma tomatoes (diced)
  
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 lemon (juiced)
• 1/2 cup dried chickpeas (soaked overnight, then boiled until cooked)
• 1/2 cup cooking water from the chickpeas
• 2 cups vegetable stock
  
• 1 - 2 tsp sweet paprika
• 1/4 of a cabbage (finely chopped)
• Big double handful of torn fresh basil leaves
• 1 handful of finely chopped fresh parsley
• Cracked black pepper

METHOD:

• Heat a good swig of olive oil in a medium soup pot and fry onion until clear
• Add garlic and bay, fry until fragrant
  
• Add tomatoes and paprika, fry for a minute or two
• Add cooked chickpeas, chickpea water, stock, lemon juice and cabbage - bring to the boil and then reduce to a slow simmer until cabbage is well cooked.
• Take off the heat and stir in torn basil.
• Serves four as an appertiser or two as a main with chopped parsley and pepper on top.