Butter Bean Soup with Spring Garlic & Spring Vegetables

There is a few things I'm loving in food land this week and they have pretty much all ended up in this soup. Butter beans are my current favourite legume. They're soft buttery and sweet. Not only are they delicious but they are a good nutritional choice. Butter beans also known as Lima beans are a very good source of dietary fibre, manganese, folate, protein, potassium, magnesium and thiamin as well as other trace minerals and vitamins.

Secondly, Spring Garlic! You might need to look around for this at your local market and you'll have to get in quick as they're not around for long. If you buy organic food it should be a little easier. It's well worth the search. It's sweeter, fresher and milder than the dried variety and it deserves to star in a dish. If you haven't tried it before I urge you to, it's a real treat. If you can't find it, you can of course use regular garlic.

And thirdly spring vegtables in general. In this soup I used thin fresh leeks, small dark green zucchinis and very firm fresh spring green beans. This soup has very minimal cooking. So it really needs super fresh produce.
I have served the soup here with some sourdough that has been rubbed with some garlic and olive oil and grilled. Although the soup in equally satisfying on it's own.

INGREDIENTS

500g Of butter beans

2 Handfuls of green beens top and tailed and cut into 1cm lengths

2 S-M zucchinis diced

2 S-M leeks thinly sliced

1 Tbs of good quality sea salt

1300ml Water

Half a bulb of spring garlic (about six cloves) and the inner stems of one bulb or three cloves of regular garlic

Olive oil

Cracked pepper and fresh oregano to serve

DIRECTIONS

Put the butter beans in a large pot full of water and leave them to soak for 8 hours or overnight. Boil the  butter beans on medium to high heat until they are soft but still holding they're shape, this could take anywhere between 30 mins to 1 hr you'll just have to keep an eye on them. Drain and set aside.

Remove any tough bits of skin around the garlic and remove the green stems from the outer husk. Thinly slice the green stems. Put a small pinch of salt over the garlic cloves and smash them with the flat part of the knife and then chop very finely until it's quite minced.

On a medium to high heat slowly cook the leeks until they are translucent, you don't want anything to brown in this soup. then add the zucchinis, green beans then the spring garlic. Cook for a minute or two then add your butter beans, the water and the salt. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a medium heat so it's a slow boil and cook for 5-10 mins until the veggies are just tender.

Serve and top with cracked pepper, fresh oregano and some grilled bread.

Enjoy!