All The Peas and Red Pesto Soup

The mix of pea varieties gives a fabulous range of textures and flavours once cooked, with some of the softer marrowfat peas collapsing to give a rich, creamy stock.

While this recipe only uses 250g of dried peas, it makes absolute sense to cook the entire 500g bag of mixed peas, saving both energy and time (pressure cooking the peas will make further savings on both counts too). You can double up the soup recipe or freeze half your cooked peas to use at a later date.

There are a number of excellent sun-dried tomato pestos on the market, both vegan or containing cheese, but making your own is an absolute cinch and an opportunity to use up any random nuts in the cupboard.

Homemade sun-dried tomato pesto:
Using a liquidiser, or hand-held blender, blitz together 2 crushed cloves of garlic, 100 g sun-dried tomatoes (drained of their oil), 1 tbsp tomato purée, 50 g pine nuts (or walnuts/almonds/hazelnuts), about 12 basil leaves and a heaped tablespoon of either nutritional yeast or grated parmesan. Add enough extra virgin olive oil to make a thick paste. Taste, your tomatoes will probably provide enough salt to season the dish.

Serves 4

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