Swiss Cookbook "Vegetable Soup"

One of the treats Christmas brought me this year was the fabulous Betty Bossi Swiss Cookbook - in English, even! Betty Bossi, it was explained to me, is sort of like the Swiss equivalent of Betty Crocker - think home-cooked meals that are hard to mess up. The recipes in the book are divided by region and ranked by flags - three flags is what your Swiss grandma might make while one flag is a more modern take on traditional ingredients. Two flags is somewhere between those two. The first thing I did was flip to our region, where this vegetable soup recipe, a three flag, immediately caught me eye. As far as I can tell, this is basically Soupe de Chalet, which we absolutely love. Pasta, cheese, cream, spinach - what's not to love?

Vegetable Soup
Prep time - 40 minutes or so

1 TBSP butter
1 leek, white and light green thinly sliced
1 onion, finely chopped
1 kohlrabi, diced (I substituted a waxy potato, diced small)
1 carrot, diced
2 cups vegetable stock
2 ounces dried macaroni (about a quarter cup, uncooked) [I used whole wheat - it was tasty]
2 tablespoons milk
1 can of white beans, rinsed and drained
3/4 cup cream
3 1/2 ounces of baby spinach
2 ounces grated Gruyere (It's all about the cheese, so definitely spring for the Gruyere... though, honestly, cheddar would probably be nice, too - just not American Swiss cheese)

Melt butter. Cook leek and onion over medium-low until softened. Add kohlrabi (or potato) and carrots. Add stock and turn up heat. Bring to boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for about ten minutes. Add pasta and milk and bring back to a boil. Lower heat, cover and simmer for another ten minutes. Uncover and add beans, cream, spinach, cheese and warm through over low heat.

Season with pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.

PS I changed the measurements to a more US-friendly version... if you want the original grams and mls, let me know!